The Terrarian
by Dawnk41
Summary: Greg Veder has powers... and a second life, one filled with violence. He finds himself faced with many choices, and hard decisions to make regarding his family, his friends, and his foes.
1. 1-1

1.1

I walked along the rooftops, hopping across the alleyway gaps when necessary, at a leisurely pace. Honestly, I wasn't too sure why I was doing this. I certainly wasn't that well prepared, not as much as I could be next week, or even tomorrow. Waiting a single day would render me two or three times as likely to get through a patrol in one piece.

Except… I knew that I had already wasted enough time waiting. In the beginning, while I was still stumbling around with my powers, I had wasted time on disbelief, panic, and even anger at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. But then I had calmed down, gotten my focus, and _listened_.

That had been two days ago. More precisely, that had been two _nights_ ago, as my power seemed to activate in my sleep. In the time since then, I had fortified myself with armor I had carved from wood with my own two hands, arming myself with a similarly crafted sword. Were they the best I could do? Far from it. But if I waited another few days to eke out a small improvement in my equipment, I might never actually get out there to be a hero. The temptation to make my stuff _'_ _just that little bit better!'_ might have never gone away.

So here I was, encased in wood, hoping that the reason that I was able to beat up gangsters wasn't because they were laughing too hard to fight back.

I stopped suddenly, tilting my head. I could hear… whimpers, muffled cursing, and muted thumps and thuds. That wasn't a good combination. I pinpointed the sound, and bounded over towards the supposedly abandoned warehouse I could hear the sounds coming from. I leapt onto the wall and clambered up, jumping around windows until I reached the massive hole near the roof. Wow, this building was in terrible shape. No wonder the shipping companies abandoned it.

Now on the upper banisters of the warehouse, I crept along until I could see what the people inside were up to.

I nearly threw up. Some Empire thugs, and it was obvious that that was what they were, were beating up a middle-aged black man. But even worse than that, they had a small child that looked like it might be the victim's child tied up and gagged. The child wasn't facing the group, thank god, but I could see him twitching and struggling with every strike they landed on the man.

I was disgusted. I pulled out a Featherfall Potion and chugged it. Then, I held out my hand, and a large wooden boomerang, nearly two feet across, materialized in it. Standing up, I let it fly at the group of thugs. The thug struck by the boomerang stumbled before crumpling, and I felt a brief flash of worry that I might have overdone it, but I quashed that feeling as I leapt down to the floor of the warehouse.

"Damnit, it's a cape!" One of the three thugs still standing hissed.

"What the hell are you monsters doing?" I snarled at them, before catching my boomerang as it returned to me. I didn't receive an answer, unless you count having three guns pulled on you as an answer, that is. I let my boomerang fly again, before leaping back into the air to dodge out of the way of their line of fire. This time, the thug in question ducked with a shout, and then kept shooting. I fell slowly, now grimacing at the thought that perhaps the Featherfall potion wasn't the best idea for high speed combat. I moved towards the thugs as I fell, positioning myself _just so_ , in order to cause my boomerang to bowl over another of them on its return.

The two remaining skinheads apparently decided to cut their losses and book it. Fortunately for me, now that I was standing with my feet firmly on the floor once more, I was faster than they were. But…

I glanced over at the boy and his father, and then sighed. As much satisfaction as it would bring me to make sure that those jerks got what was coming to them, it was probably more important to make sure that the victims were okay. I ran to the child, who was closer to me, and untied his bonds and took off his gag. Immediately, he rolled to his feet and dashed over to his father.

"Daddy! Daddy, are you okay?" The little boy was trying to stop crying. I felt awful. If I had gotten here sooner, if I hadn't been taking my time on my patrol, I might have been able to put a stop to this earlier.

But my self-recriminations could wait. I walked briskly over to one of the downed thugs, and rifled through his pockets. Cellphone acquired, I walked back over to the injured man, who was sitting up now, groaning. I dialed 911, and waited a moment as it rang. After a few seconds, a voice answered.

"911, what is the nature of your emergency?" A crisp sounding woman stated over the line.

I floundered for a moment before getting a grip on myself. "Uh, hi. I'm a new independent hero, and I just stopped some Empire goons from killing a man and his son. Do you know what I should do from here?" I asked.

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. "Well, sir, this is generally handled better by the police department, so for future instances, please use this number," She rattled off a number for me to use, "But we'll be sure to direct the PRT to your location so that a member of the Protectorate can meet you and debrief you about future such situations."

Oh! I was going to get to meet a member of the Protectorate? I hope it's Armsmaster, I'm a huge fan of his… I finished talking with the lady on the phone, including telling her the address of the warehouse, and tossed the cell back onto the thug I got it from. I walked over to the injured guy and his son. Crap, should I have called for an ambulance?

"Are… Are you alright, sir? Do you want me to get you an ambulance?" I would have wrung my hands, if I hadn't been wearing wooden paneled gauntlets. He had ugly bruises appearing all over his face, and he was holding one of his ribs tenderly. I hoped it wasn't broken...

He waved off my concern. "I'll be alright, thanks though." He paused, before speaking up again. "Also, thank you for saving us. If you hadn't come, who knows what would have happened to Anthony…" He hugged his son close to him.

"It's part of the job, sir. This sort of thing is why I became a hero." I said airily. Lies. I became a hero for the kick of it, something that I now felt was kicking me. I didn't want to set a bad example for this kid, though, or lower their opinion of real heroes in general.

We waited for a few more minutes, until I heard a vehicle pull up outside the warehouse.

"That must be the police." I said, relieved. I stood up and walked over to a window.

It wasn't the police. As a cape geek, I had put in a lot of time memorizing all the capes on every side of the conflict here in Brockton Bay, mostly for the purpose of accuracy on the PHO 'Cape vs. Cape' threads.

As such, even when it was from what I could see from across a street under a streetlight, I knew what Cricket and Stormtiger's masks looked like.

My mind flew into action. Let's see, Cricket has the ability to create sonic waves that can disrupt people, and she's also known to have superhuman reflexes and agility. Stormtiger's power was over air, he often shot pressurized blasts of air as a weapon.

Basically, as long as Stormtiger was here, my boomerang was useless, and Cricket would be much better at hand-to-hand combat than me, though she was better known for wielding two weird little scythe-things.

Which made me happy that I had more than just my boomerang. I dissolved my trusty projectile and formed my spear in my hands instead.

"If you can move, sir, you need to get yourself hidden somewhere in the back. Looks like the empire sent a few of their capes to rough me up."

The man appeared to want to argue for a moment, but after glancing down to his son, his shoulders slumped, and he nodded. from the corner of my eye, I watched his son help him hobble further into the warehouse. Once they were far enough away, I strode out the door and took a stance with my spear.

"Hello there. What can I do for you two this evening?" I asked them pleasantly. Under my wooden helmet, I was sweating profusely. Hopefully, I would be able to talk my way out of this.

They paused for a moment, before Stormtiger replied. "We heard that someone had assaulted a few of our members. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?" His tone belied the intent behind his polite words. This would turn into a fight, as soon as he tired of the verbal exchange.

I swallowed, before replying in kind. "I found four men beating up a fifth, in front of a child. Anyone would step in, don't you agree?" I was stalling at this point, and all three of us knew it.

He shrugged. "All the same, regardless of circumstances, the Empire cannot tolerate any attacks on our members. _Especially_ ," He cricked his neck, and popped his knuckles. "Within our territory. Which is why I'm going to have to make an example of you, Treeman."

I grimaced. Treeman? That was terrible. I _seriously_ hope that that doesn't become my cape name. I'd just die of shame. Note to self, try to come up with a cool cape name that doesn't spoil everything about me.

I was distracted from my thoughts on names by Cricket lunging towards me. I immediately brought my spear to bear and aimed it at her when all of a sudden, a terribly painful noise screamed through my ears, disorienting me and causing my legs to wobble.

Judging by Cricket's expression, the fact that this didn't stop me from holding my ground and stabbing forward with my spear was unexpected. I took a stupidly large amount of pleasure out of the fact that I could just no-sell Cricket's disorienting soundwaves. I stopped grinning quite as wide when she simply bent far enough to get out of the way of my spear.

She backflipped away from me, and shouted something. I couldn't hear, of course, she had just deafened me. Didn't she realize that? How long was I going to be deaf, anyways? I checked my status.

 _Deafened - 26 seconds remaining._

Bah, a whole half-minute with no hearing? That'll suck, fights are fast-paced. Since I couldn't rely on being able to hear attacks coming for the moment I took a few steps back to widen my field of view, keeping both Stormtiger and Cricket in sight.

Cricket appeared to be angry at the fact that I wasn't answering her, so I spoke up. "Sorry, you kinda broke my eardrums. I'll be fine in a minute, if you want to repeat yourself then."

She was probably scowling under her mask, but she reined herself in and dove at me again. I prepared to counter her attack with my spear, while desperately trying to figure out what Stormtiger was going to do to me in the meantime, when suddenly a cloud of dirt burst into the air near Stormtiger's feet.

Stormtiger stumbled backwards while waving his arms in front of him, probably to ward off the cloud of soil from entering his eyes. Cricket lunged to the side and came to a rolling crouch, eyes examining the nearby rooftops for the mystery sniper. Apparently, she found him, as her gaze froze, and she said something.

Man, being deaf stinks. How much longer do I have to wait?

 _Deafened - 17 seconds remaining._

This was taking forever. Ugh. I risked a glance towards where Cricket had been staring. I saw a woman in military dress holding what appeared to be a glowing green sniper rifle. _Miss Militia_ , I thought, my inner fanboy squealing in glee. Ah, who am I kidding? I am my inner fanboy. Outer fanboy? Whatever.

I paid for my distraction in the form of Cricket's weapon slicing my spear-arm clean off just behind the elbow. I glared at Cricket for a brief moment, before dissolving my spear, now lying on the ground and forming my sword instead, this time in my left hand. Good thing I was technically ambidextrous now.

Apparently content with her impromptu dismemberment of my arm, Cricket beat a hasty retreat towards Stormtiger, who was now trading shots with Miss Militia. Miss Militia was apparently using rubber bullets to great effect, as Stormtiger was sporting several ugly bruises, in addition to a potentially broken leg. Hadn't he been using his aerokinesis to shield himself?

Oh, he had, but Miss Militia was pretty close. Nearly point-blank, actually. Wow, painful. Looked like Miss Militia was trying pretty hard not to inflict permanent damage.

Unlike Cricket, what a psycho. I watched as Cricket scooped up Stormtiger in her wake as they booked it back to their vehicle, an unmarked grey van. Miss Militia looked like she wanted to give chase, but as the tires squealed and the duo booked it, she reluctantly halted her assault. I saw her weapon shift into a small knife, which she sheathed, before she began walking over to me.

I saw an expression of horror behind her scarf - an American Flag - before she spoke. "Oh my god, did Cricket cut off your _arm_? We need to get you medical attention!" She began to pull a radio out of her pocket, but I waved her off. After doing so, I realized I should do it with the arm that wasn't a stump, but eh, whatever.

"I'm fine, it'll grow back." I stated, unconcerned. "Lemme just speed up the process a bit. Would you mind looking away for a moment?" I unequipped my sword and helmet, materializing one of my Regeneration potions in their wake, which I downed. Smacking my lips, I re-equipped my helmet. "Alright, you can look again." She turned back around, the face I could see above the scarf still being unnaturally pale. Surely she had seen someone's arm get cut off before in her career?

I held up my arm and watched the stump crawling forward. Grinning, I watched the veins and arteries creeping ahead of the flesh, before being swallowed up in the encroaching limb. This always looked so cool! I shook my head to clear my mind of thoughts like that. It was the little things that made me remember that I wasn't quite right in the head anymore.

But how else am I supposed to be? I've died more times than I can count in the past few weeks, so I don't think I have much of a shot at normality anymore. I only have two modes, now. Greg, and Cape, neither of which make a strong impression of normality.

Miss Militia had found her voice again. "I see. Are you… used to having to regrow limbs?" I could hear the concern radiating from her voice. Was she hunting around for if I had an abusive home life? Well, that wouldn't get her anywhere.

I thought it might be amusing to be honest here. "Yeah, but it's no big deal. My training is pretty intense. This was actually my first night on the street." I smiled under my helmet. "How do you think I did?" My tone was bright and chipper, which she probably found disconcerting, given my lack of concern for the loss of limb.

Still, she was professional enough not to let it enter voice now that she had regained control of herself. "Very well, actually. Not many can hold off Cricket, even for a short time. I assume that your regeneration also fixed your eardrums?" I nodded. It was pretty much true, anyways. "Changing subjects slightly, here, I was curious… can you make your," She paused here, gesturing towards my hand. "Weapon, turn into anything?"

I hesitated, wondering how much I should reveal about this aspect of my powers, before settling on an explanation. "Not really, I have a pocket dimension full of stuff that I can swap things out for." Basically true.

Miss Militia was silent for a moment, probably considering what her next move should be. "...Do you have a cape name? I can't just keep calling you, "You."

My mind screeched to a halt. My name! Argh, I hadn't had any time to think. I _really_ didn't want a wood-based name, so I said the next thing that popped into my head. "Oh, uh, Terrari-uh, Terrarian. Call me Terrarian." I stammered out.

It worked for me, I think. It was both more descriptive than anyone else could figure out, and didn't actually tell anyone anything about my powers. Perfect!

Her eyes crinkled into what was probably a smile under the scarf. "Well then, Terrarian, would you like to come back to the Rig with me? I could give you a tour, show you a few things about the way the Protectorate goes about it." The offer was tempting, but I couldn't accept, for multiple reasons. Not the least of which is that we had forgotten about the man with injuries in the back of the warehouse.

"Sorry, but I'll have to pass on that for now. The man that the thugs earlier were attacking is inside this warehouse, I had him hide when those two showed up. He has his son with him." I stated grimly, reminding her why we were even out here in the first place. She nodded in acceptance. After we had helped the man and his child get to the hospital, I begged off on the visit again, before scampering.

She gave me some parting words. "Just remember, Terrarian, if you ever need assistance, the Protectorate is here. Good work."

I made it home and quickly unequipped all my armor and weapons. I lay in my bed for about an hour before hearing the front door open and shut, pretty quietly. But not quietly enough that I couldn't pick up on the sound. The stairs creaked as a figure climbed them, and I could hear a voice muttering.

I glanced at my alarm clock. _2:30 AM.  
_  
She was home earlier than usual.

"Look, Brad, I'll be able to help more with the attack on Lung's shipments this weekend, but I need tomorrow to myself. I'm going to be spending the day with my son." There was a pause, before the voice continued. "Yes, yes, I understand. I'll take it under advisement, and factor it into my plans. New capes always change the scenery in small ways. Alright, good bye Brad, and thanks for telling Max for me." The voice went silent then, and I heard the footsteps continue down the hallway, hesitating in front of the other bedroom, before it crept up to mine.

The voice was quiet outside my door. "Good night Greg, sweet dreams. I love you."

Only after the footsteps retreated into the other bedroom once more, and the quiet _snick_ of the door closing was heard, did I risk whispering into my pillow. "Night mom, love you too."

OoOoO

 ** _Author Note:_** Eventually, Worm will have crossovers with everything. I'm just doing my bit in making sure that day comes. Also, AAAAAAAAAH. Why do I keep starting new stories? I won't let any of them die for now, I swear, I'm just cycling around for now.


	2. 1-2

1.2

I enjoyed the next day. Mom and I had done small things, simple things. Shopping, feeding some seagulls, a movie. Stuff we hadn't done in a long time. Not since Dad left us. I still ached inside from how much I missed the way he would ruffle my hair and ask me why my expression was so serious. I still hurt from having to see the way he had slowly descended from being a bright and cheerful man that everyone around him couldn't help but admire, into a spiteful and bitter curmudgeon that couldn't see anyone around him being happy without wanting to tear it down.

I missed him terribly, but I sure was glad he was gone.

After our fun was done, Mom and I parted ways at the house, me with an excuse that I needed to double-check some homework I had been given over the winter break, and she claiming that a neighbor needed some company throughout an illness.

Were either of us really believing that the other was fooled?

I _did_ look over my English assignment, giving my paper on figurative language a cursory glance combined with a grunt of approval, before slipping it back into my backpack and getting down to what I really wanted to do. Sleep.

Well, technically. In reality, I hadn't slept a wink since I got my powers. Sure, I would lay down my head on my pillow, wrap myself up in the blankets, and close my eyes…

...Before opening my eyes in the small shack that Trent called home. There, I would equip my armor, ready my weapons, and go out and fight. In the daytime, the world outside the shack was fairly peaceful. The occasional slime would move through the trees, awaiting its death at my hands in good patience, but other than that, I was free to work as I liked, travelling the land in search of the treasures it held. I had carved myself a set of wooden armor, but when Trent saw my work, he merely rolled his eyes before telling me that I needed to get myself some real protection.

I hadn't quite seen the point at the time. If I were in any actual danger, I may have changed my mind, but I had long since learned that in my dreamworld, death didn't apply to me.

Now, though? After having been in a fight with Cricket, whose weapon had sliced through my armor (and arm), like butter? Heck yeah I needed better armor. Hopefully, it would also go a long way in distancing me from possible bad cape names like Treeman.

Ugh.

I had spent the time after my excursion last night scouting the surroundings of Trent's hut for copper deposits, something that Trent told me should be fairly plentiful, and let me create the items I needed fairly quickly. He also mentioned that I would need some iron, to create the anvil. I would have preferred to make my armor from iron as well, but he told me that it was unlikely I'd be able to find enough of it any time soon, here on the surface.

So iron armaments became a longer term project.

I was kneeling on the floor of the hut, constructing the forge that I had been informed would be necessary for all my metalworking needs, when Trent had broken the silence.

"You know, you really should go exploring the underground at some 'll find a lot more minerals down there, not to mention any number of more powerful magic items." He put forward the idea in a persuasive tone, but it had been something he had told me many times since I first arrived here. He had posited the idea to me at the very beginning, claiming that I could skip the wooden, copper, and iron tiers of armor altogether, and leap straight to silver.

Silver, stronger than iron? What? But that would hardly be the strangest thing about this world, so I could ignore it. I wasn't entirely sure that the armor itself actually did anything, really. The strange thing that I had noticed about armor here, is that wearing ANY increased your toughness. As in, wear the wooden leggings? (Man, those had been hard to construct. Inter-locking wooden panels. Good thing I'm an instinctive master carpenter now.) Your whole body is now better defended. Granted, that hadn't stopped Cricket from lopping off my arm, but that was probably because wooden armor is the worst armor I could have possibly made. I just didn't want to wear the cactus armor, alright?

I realized that Trent was still waiting for me to answer, and shook my head. "Sorry Trent, you know how that went when I had first gotten here. I am _not_ going back down there until I've got at least a full set of copper armor and some decent weapons."

Trent rolled his eyes and turned away, muttering. " _...Decent weapons, he says. Copper weapons_ aren't _decent…_ " I smiled at his antics, and got back to my work. Mostly, I just let my body work on the blueprints that had been inscribed on my mind when I worked. It isn't so much that I know how to make anything, but rather that if I have all the ingredients to make something, and the tools on hand, I have this little button in my head that says, "Make This." Then I just go on autopilot while I assemble whatever it is.

Once the forge was completed, I went out to gather the copper and the smidgeon of iron I had mapped out last night. The trip was pretty uneventful, I only got jumped by slimes four times. When I returned to the hut, I learned that it wasn't enough iron for the anvil. I was preparing my inventory for when I awoke, when Trent opened one of the junk chests.

"...Greg, why are there several hundred throwing knives and shurikens in this chest?" His voice was incredulous, and his expression one of awed disbelief. I raised an eyebrow.

"...Because I don't really use them? I only have so many, so when I run out of them, I would have to switch them out for my boomerang anyways, and it's always a pain to run around and collect the ones that don't break. I'll stick with ranged weapons that return themselves, like my boomerang," I stated, giving him _Greg's Theory on Combat Economics_ , 'Why use weapons that run out over weapons that don't?'

Apparently, he wasn't impressed. "Greg, when you throw your boomerang, you have to wait for it to come back before you throw it again. In the meantime, you can't use any of your other weapons without your boomerang disappearing. Against faster opponents, or hell, even if you _miss_ , what will you do when they attack you while your boomerang is thirty feet away?" He was really getting into his tirade at this point, gesturing widely. "On the other hand, throwing weapons like the knives? You can throw a dozen in the same time you can throw your boomerang _once_. You really should bring them with you. It's not like you need to save space for something better, you need everything you can bring."

I blinked. Opened my mouth to argue the point, and paused. "What if they run out?" I managed to ask him.

He shrugged. "Then they _still_ did you more good than they would have done you lying in that chest." I considered this for a moment, then I nodded.

"Fine, I'll bring them with me." I took a few stacks of each and withdrew them into my inventory. "See you later, Trent." Then I closed my eyes-

-and opened them again, this time lying in my bed. I checked the clock, which read roughly 5:00 AM. Alright, I had about three and a half hours before school started. Shame, winter break had been really enjoyable now that I had powers.

I sighed. If I went back to my dream world, I wouldn't really have enough time to get anything done before I had to wake up again. I may as well get ready for the day.

Stretching my tired limbs, I dropped to the floor and began to do push ups, well aware that they weren't actually doing anything for me. They were too easy now, and I couldn't balance enough weight on my back to make it a strain without the stack toppling. Besides, I wasn't even sure my body could build muscle anymore. I might get stronger in my dream world, and by extension, here, but my body never changed. I had stopped getting taller when I triggered. Before, I had been growing, slowly, half an inch or so every few weeks. In the time since, I hadn't gained a centimeter. It made me wonder… Did I age anymore?

If not, I'm not too sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, eternal youth. On the other… Well, I'm definitely not the most handsome or well built young man. Besides, it would probably be hard to hide the fact that I'm not getting any older after a while.

I stopped doing push ups, none the worse for wear, in mild disappointment. Couldn't my powers at least let me bulk up? I had made my armor with stylized muscles in the design, and it always made me feel inadequate when I took it off.

I went down the stairs to eat breakfast, and found a note on the table.

 _Greg,_

 _I had to go into work early today, so I'll miss seeing you off to school.  
Love you! Eat a healthy breakfast, have a great day at school, and do your homework!  
I'll be home later this evening._

 _Love, Mom_

I smiled, folding up the note and putting it back on the counter. I rolled my eyes, feigning exasperation. _'_ _Alright mom, I'll eat a healthy breakfast.'_ Cereal's healthy, right? Not too much work, either. Not that I really needed to worry about how much work it took, seeing as I didn't get tired, and I was a master chef now, for some reason. If I had ingredients in front of me, and a kitchen to work in, I could see a little list of all the things I could make with those ingredients, flip a mental switch, and allow the actions to blur past me, resulting in a food item of extremely high quality.

I was lucky that I hadn't let my mom find out about that, or I would be cooking all the meals ever. _EVER._

Still, just because I could, didn't mean that I wanted to. Cereal it was. I sat there, in mostly silence, for a good twenty minutes. Yeah, there was the crunching sound of chewing, but that really doesn't count. In my head, I was examining my inventory. Had my set of wooden armor, my spear, sword, and boomerang, the throwing knives and shurikens…

I had a lot of stuff in there. Mostly potions, though, for the various situations I might need some trick to get out of. I had once tried building myself a base for my hero operations out in the woods near Brockton Bay, but after spending a few hours constructing it, only for it to vanish back into my inventory when I got a mile away from it, I wasn't too eager to do that again. Such a wasted effort…

I closed my inventory, putting my cereal bowl in the dishwasher. Still had a lot of time before school… So what now? I considered this for a moment. I glanced over at the clock. 5:45.

I sighed. Guess I should _actually_ look over the English assignment a bit more carefully, seeing as I had the time.

I spent the next two hours going over all the homework that I hadn't really done over the break, and pretty much finished it all. Gathering it all up, I stowed the papers in my backpack. Time to catch the bus, I guess. I sighed, feeling so much frustration at the fact that after a weekend of some pretty fun superpower shenanigans, I find myself once more dreading a return to school.

The bus ride was fairly peaceful, nobody really pays me any mind, which is usual. I have to keep reminding myself that being in a mob of people is _normal_ , and that the part of my brain that has gotten used to any movement being an enemy currently hell-bent on attacking me is _not needed_ here.

I manage to weave through the hallways to my first class without incident, though there is a pretty terrible smell in one of the hallways. I wonder what was causing that? It's like something died. After turning in my English paper, I got a really scrutinizing look from Mrs. Farr. I tried my best to emit an innocent air, and probably failed miserably. Still, Mrs. Farr might not have a high opinion of my intellect, but she was too lazy to make a big deal out of cheating and such. If someone had claimed my work as their own, though, then she would probably automatically assume they would be in the right.

Not that anyone would want to claim _my_ work as theirs. They had no idea that I had improved my focus so much, and thus probably assumed I was still just as aimlessly air-headed as I had been before being brutally murdered by… I mentally slapped myself while returning to my seat. Gotta stop thinking about that, or I might flinch at the wrong moment and accidentally stab someone.

I drift through the day until third period, when an office aid shows up at the door to give Mr. Gladly a note. I didn't pay it any mind until Mr. Gladly spoke up. "Veder, you're wanted in the office." Mr. Gladly is a weird teacher. He's always trying to get in the students' good books, and thus tries to give off a 'friendly and cool' vibe. Unfortunately, that means that in order to stay on the majority's good side, he has to be slightly _less_ friendly to the unpopular kids, like me and Taylor.

Ignoring his inflection-free tone, I stand up. "Alright, Mr. Gladly. I'll go see what they want. Can I have the hall pass?" He nods as I pass, and I grab the card-on-a-string from it's hook as I leave the room. Humming quietly to myself, I wrinkle my nose as I pass the smelly hallway again. Ugh, I really hope that the janitor gets on that by tomorrow, that's really gonna put so many kids off their lunch.

Actually, maybe not. I think I might have a heightened sense of smell now, maybe nobody else can smell it? Ugh, that thought makes me feel sick, thinking that it might not get taken care of and that I'll have to smell that every day.

I push through the door into the school administration office, and sit down in one of the chairs in the waiting room. My rear barely touches the seat when Principal Blackwell's door opens, and she steps out.

"Mr. Veder," she begins, "I apologize that I have some distressing news for you."

I tensed up. What sort of bad news did they call you to the office to dish out? She didn't speak for a minute, so I pitched in on the conversation. "What news would that be, Ma'am?" I asked cautiously.

She looked uncomfortable, but proceeded. "There was an scuffle by the Fourth Avenue Pharmacy this morning, between the Empire and the parahuman group known as the Undersiders. Your mother was in the middle of a delivery for the clinic, and was injured in the attack. I was not informed as to the severity of the injuries she incurred. She is being treated at Brockton Bay General." She stated grimly.

I froze up, before stammering. "C-can I have permission to leave school, Ma'am? I would _really_ like to go check on my mom." I managed to say that without crying, good for me. My mom's all I've got left, I can't lose her now, I-I've got to go _do_ something about this, anything, and that starts with seeing her.

She hesitated, before nodding and writing me up a permission slip to leave the school grounds. Once I had it in my possession, I dashed down the hallway, out the door and down the sidewalk. Anyone that knew about my circumstances would assume that I was running to the bus stop, but I had a different destination in mind.

I passed the bus stop and entered a slightly more deserted part of the Docks, and slipped into an alley. I whipped my head around and, when I failed to spot any observers, equipped all my gear. Thusly prepared, I leaped ten feet into the air onto a nearby fire escape, and used it as a springboard to reach the roof of the abandoned apartment complex.

Quickly reaching the highest speed I could manage, I ran full-tilt across the city towards Brockton Bay General Hospital. Once I got close, I ducked down on a roof neighboring the hospital and knelt, my hands on the ground, trying to stop myself from hyperventilating. Scanning my surroundings once more for watchers, I dropped silently into another alley, and unequipped my armor as I started walking out of the narrow gap between apartments.

I practically jumped up the steps to the main office, and passed through the automatic doors. I made a beeline straight for the receptionist, and spoke. "Miss, can you please tell me where Theresa Veder's room is?" I asked, desperation bleeding into my tone.

She looked startled, but replied. "Er, yes, I mean, are you a relative?" She stammered out, before glancing down at a report. "Oh, you're her son Greg, aren't you? She's in room 208." After getting directions, I walked swiftly away.

Finding room 208, I reached for the doorknob, before freezing up again. I gritted my teeth, and then forced my hand to grip the knob and twist. I entered the room to a depressing sight. Mom was hooked up to a plethora of life support machines. Standing in the room were two men, who appeared to be in a discussion that had paused for my entry. One of the men was huge, with greasy-blonde hair and scars littering his face. The other was also blonde, with a well-kempt hairstyle and clean shaven face. Both wore suits.

The shorter of the two spoke up. "Hello, you must be Greg, Theresa's son. I'm Max Anders, Medhall's CEO. Your mother is one of my most-valued employees, so Medhall will be footing the bill for her hospital stay." His explanation was reassuring, and his tone easy. I smiled. _That_ was welcome news. Funds were already tight enough at our house that I had been a bit worried how we were going to afford this.

I stepped forward and held out a hand. "Thank you sir, that's good to hear. I'm Greg Veder." His grip was firm, and his gaze calculating as we looked each other in the eye. I broke contact first when one of the machines mom was hooked up to made a strange beeping sound. Neither of the two so much as flinched at the sound, though, so I looked back and moved my hand back to my side. All was silent for a moment, and then I spoke quietly. "Do you know how she's doing?"

Mr. Anders sighed. "She could be doing better, but it could have been worse. She should be fully recovered in a week or two. Three on the outside. It would be better if we could get Panacea to come in, but unfortunately, she is currently on a trip to Europe, and won't be returning for another month." I sighed unhappily. Of course she was.

I narrowed my eyes, though, as I remembered the words of the principal before my impromptu trip across the city. "Sir, do you know anything about the Undersiders? I heard that they were responsible for this." Mr. Anders looked at me in surprise, and then approval.

"The Undersiders. A relatively new group to Brockton Bay. Young people, it would appear, mostly around your age, I believe. Members include Rachel Lindt, aka 'Hellhound'. She controls three monstrous beasts, and is the party primarily responsible for your mother's injuries." My face tightened further at the mention. Hellhound. I would remember that. "Regent is another member, his power is to cause muscle spasms in his opponents, otherwise, he's a bit player of their group. Tattletale is an unknown of the group, though her name suggests a Thinker of some kind. Grue, the leader," Here Max sneered. "Is a Shaker. He creates pools of darkness that mute most of the senses. He used them to disorient the people at the scene of the fight this morning. It was because of him that the bystanders couldn't get out of the fight in time." Another name to remember.

Hellhound and Grue, the two major architects of my mother's injuries. I nodded to Mr. Anders. "Thank you sir, you've given me a lot to think about."

He smiled at me and clapped a hand on my shoulder. "No trouble at all, Greg. Hope your day improves." Here he gave me a sympathetic grin. My expression turns wooden. I've never dealt well with pity.

He seems to take the hint, and turning to his partner, speaks up. "Brad, let's leave young Mr. Veder here with his mother, we can continue our conversation elsewhere." The bigger man follows Mr. Anders out the door, and once it closes, bathes the room in silence.

I drag a chair over from the corner to be beside the bed and take seat. I grip my mother's hand that didn't have an IV in the arm. I sat there, holding her hand, and taking reassurance from the fact that I can feel her pulse, strong and steady. This quiet scene lasts for about twenty minutes, until I whisper something to her.

"Don't worry mom, I'll make sure that they'll never hurt anyone like this again." I moved the chair back to its corner, and walked calmly out of the hospital.

I had some preparation to do.

OoOoO

 ** _Author Note:_** I'm dropping hints of all kinds in this chapter! Whee!


	3. 1-3

_**Author Note:**_ Sorry about posting this later than I meant to, it just kept getting longer.

1.3

I arrived back home feeling exhausted, mentally. The day I had had so far was enough to make me wish that I _could_ fall asleep, if only to forget everything for a few hours. Instead, I did the next best thing. Passing the counter that still had mom's note on it, I trudged up the stairs to my room and collapsed on my bed. I- I just needed to get away from everything for a bit. I closed my eyes-

-and opened them in Terraria. Trent was sitting down at a table in his hut, reading a book, but he glanced up when I arrived, a smile entering his face. "Ah, Greg, good to see you!" Something about my inner turmoil must have been visible on my face, because almost immediately, he frowned. "What's wrong, Greg?"

I stared at him for a moment, before I grimaced. "My," I choked, and glanced away from him. "My mom got hurt pretty badly today. She got caught up in a fight between some powerful groups. I want to finish my copper armor, and then I'm going underground." I managed to bring my gaze back up to him, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that his face wasn't full of the pity I had begun to get used to from others. Trent didn't really understand much about our world, and that included things like injuries, family relationships, and politics, and I was never more glad about that than right now.

Trent's eyebrows raised, and I could tell he was struggling with whether he should look sad for my situation, or happy that I was going underground. Trent always seemed to be happier when I was making visible progress on… everything, really. Trent didn't look like he had much by the way of hobbies. He just sat around in this cabin all day. In the end, Trent simply nodded, and let me get on with my work.

Even after smelting all the copper I had found, I only had enough to make the chain-mail and greaves. I equipped them anyways, a little disappointed at how little of a difference it had made to how tough I was. I sighed, and I stood up, having resigned myself to the fact that I would have to go and gather more copper outside, when Trent broke into my musings. "Just go underground now, man. You want to make gains faster? Take the risk. It's not like you can die, anyways!" I nodded, hesitantly. I was afraid to tell him that I was fairly sure that every death rendered me a little less sane. After all, I had died a lot in the beginning, and I felt like I had PTSD whenever it came to interacting with people these days.

Was that just a psychological effect of being torn apart by zombies? Dissolved in the stomach of a slime? Falling off a cliff? Drowning? Or was it something more, another strange rule of this world, that dying put a little less of you back together each time? I was in no hurry to find out, but… I needed to get stronger, strong enough to get back at the Undersiders for hurting my mom.

Trent grinned widely. "Perfect! Alright, here's what you should do this time: Build a small hut a little ways away from the shack, and begin tunneling downwards, a vertical mine shaft. Mark how high you can jump, and place platforms at that height repeatedly, to allow you to jump out of the shaft and get back down safely. Alright?" I nodded again, still not feeling up to much enthusiasm. Before, it was kinda fun to explore and gather stuff here, especially once I could get back at the zombies for killing me so much. But now? I felt a burning drive. I _needed_ to avenge my mother's injuries.

I took a stack of wood out of my construction materials chest, and made a few dozen platforms. Then, I headed out. The work was monotonous, repetitive, but I found that that actually helped me. I fell into a pattern. Dig deeper, set up a platform. I did so for a time, trying to lose myself in the task. Occasionally, I would run into a vein of ore, some copper, some iron. Not too much of either, sadly.

Suddenly, my pickax broke through the ceiling of a cavern. I nearly stumbled, but avoided plummeting into the unknown pit. I peered into the darkness, but I couldn't make out anything. Pulling out a glow stick from my inventory, I shook it, popped it, and dropped it into the pit. Dang, that was kinda far to fall. Not an option. Good thing I've got rope.

As I was setting up the rope to be long enough to allow me to reach the floor in one piece, I was assaulted by the one of the most annoying creatures known to man. Bats.

Quickly dispatching the creature, I peered warily through the hole and tried to catch sight of motion. Failing to spot any more monsters, I grabbed the rope and slid down.

After setting up some more torches, I began to explore the cavern. I excavated a few more ore deposits, and killed a few skeletons. I couldn't help but wonder, again, where did all the zombies, skeletons, and other undead even _come_ from? I hadn't spotted any other signs of a defunct civilization. No abandoned towns or cities on the surface, no cemeteries for the zombies to crawl out of, nothing. I had some strange clues that pointed to absolutely no real conclusion. Whenever I died, I re-spawned, and the location of my death had mysteriously spawned a Tombstone, detailing how I had died. Mysterious? Yes. Creepy? Most certainly. Could I do anything about it? Avoid dying. Right-o.

Down one of the dark caves branching off from the cavern, I saw something. Getting closer, I shone the light from my torch in that direction. It turned out to be… A house? What? This far underground, a spontaneous house just sat there, in this cave. It wasn't in perfect condition, a few walls had caved in, there were large holes in the floor, and cobwebs had overtaken a majority of the interior, from what I could see of it. Still, it was in better condition than an uninhabited house two-hundred feet underground had a right to be.

I walked up to the door cautiously, though in truth I wasn't all that worried. If there _had_ been a creature lying in wait in the house, by the time I got this close, it would have burst out of the structure, or at least be beating itself against the walls, in an attempt to kill me. They always did. Unless there were smarter monsters underground…

I frowned at the thought, and increased the amount of caution I paid the situation. I shuffled towards the door, having placed a torch on the wall, with my spear ready for action in my hands. Still no action from within the house. I carefully reached out and opened the door, placing another torch inside, and looked around. There were a few signs of society on the inside. A table, a painting (Which actually looked like it was undamaged, as well as a high quality work), and a piano? But the real prize here was a yellow chest, sitting in the middle of the floor, looking quite similar to the wooden chests I had discovered on the surface, but higher quality.

I pumped my fist in the air. "Jackpot!" I crowed. Eagerly moving forward, I opened the chest, peering into the curiously large container. Inside, I found some potions, including a purple one I'd never seen before, some iron ingots, a beautiful statue of an angel, and a green pair of shoes with wings.

Hmm, shoes with wings? There wasn't a 'Feet' slot in my inventory's equippable zone, so it must be an 'Accessory', which was good news to me, as I could put on accessories and make them vanish, while still gaining their effects. This allowed me to wear my climbing claws and the strange, broken, shackles I had obtained from a zombie without people in the streets giving me odd looks. Those and the Aglet were my current accessories, and with the addition of these shoes, I would have one more slot remaining.

I wonder what the shoes do? They had little wings on them, so I crossed my fingers for flight. Flight was one of those powers just about everyone wanted, which made the fact that it was also a very common power, or at least side effect of powers, quite welcome indeed.

Equipping them, I hopped into the air. There wasn't a noticeable difference from my earlier jumps, so that was out. I thought really hard about flying. Cracking open my eyes, I was disappointed, though not exactly surprised, to note that my feet were still very firmly connected to the ground. Sighing, I began to walk back out of the cavern with the derelict house towards my rope. I took a slightly different path through the cave, hoping to find at least one more iron deposit before I began my ascent. Instead of an iron deposit, my foot discovered something else.

A button, made of a material similar enough to the surrounding stone to blend in, pressed into the floor, and I froze up as a loud groaning sound echoed through the cavern. Then something enormous slammed into the ground behind me, and I started to run. When the sound of something behind me snapping stalagmites reached my ears, I risked a glance behind me. I nearly tripped at the sight of a boulder, three times my height rolling along just meters away from my back, and it was gaining. What the heck? Am I reenacting Indiana Jones? I redoubled my efforts, nearly instantly achieving a pace faster than any I had set before.

But I went even faster than that, and I just kept building speed. In an incredibly short period of time, I was blurring across the ground, deftly stepping out of the way of stalagmites and outcropping rock formations. Before I knew it, I was coming up to the cavern walls. I slid to a stop, and jumped up onto a ledge in the wall. Scrambling to get upright, I looked behind me, watching the rolling stone continue in its destructive path. It was… pretty far away, and it took a disconcertingly long time for it to reach the wall below me, where it shattered into pieces. I thought, absently, that that was strange. It had hit the floor when it fell from the ceiling with far greater force than its impact with the wall, so why did it only shatter now?

I shook the thought from my head, chalking it up to another example of Terraria's bizarre physics. More importantly, I was now a speedster! Those green shoes were actually pretty awesome. Super speed was an incredibly rare power, as Human beings usually just couldn't handle high speeds without injury, unless their power specifically protects them. Well, my powers were definitely pretty good at keeping me safe, even if the methods I used to _gain_ those powers did anything but. Was it odd, I wondered, that the city of Brockton Bay, one of the most crime-infested cities in the United States, was _less_ dangerous to me than my dreams?

As I ascended the rope, and then the platforms, I felt the carefree euphoria of battle and adventure fall away from me, and I returned to the darker mindset that had hung over me since leaving the hospital. Trent quietly hung about in the background as I smelted the iron ore I had retrieved and added the newly forged ingots to the stack I had obtained from the chest. Good. I had enough for a full set of armor and a sword. While I set about the grim business of constructing my armaments of war, I wore a savage grin as I considered the use that I had in store for this sword.

The Undersiders _would_ be brought to justice. This, I swear.

OoOoO

That night found me jumping, once again, from roof to roof, in search of the Undersiders. I just had one little problem.

Where were they? I mean, I knew, logically, that even if I _had_ been capable of scouring the city from above in a single night, fast enough that someone couldn't avoid me by doubling back on my path, they might not be pulling a heist right now.

Heck, they could be out of costume, for all I knew, or in bed.

Like sane people would be, at this hour.

Heedless of such common sense, I ran onward, allowing myself to go a fraction faster than my normal pace. I couldn't go _too_ quickly, as I didn't want to miss any signs of my quarry, but I was still moving at a pretty good clip, far faster than the average human can sprint.

I may not have found the criminals I had been looking for, but I had still disrupted several other crimes. A gang fight between some ABB toughs and some Empire thugs had been ended pretty fast when I dropped down in the middle of them and whacked a couple guys with the butt of my spear. A quick call to the police later and I had been back on my way. Another incident had been dealt with, through inaction, on my part. A merchant selling some drugs to a scruffy looking dude had broken up just by me poking my head into the alley to ensure that nothing untoward was occurring. Heck, I wouldn't have done anything to them anyways. If some guy wanted to pay another guy some cash to ruin his life, who was I to deny him? Just don't forcibly addict someone, and I won't step into it.

Another fruitless half hour passed, and I was just about ready to head home, when I was interrupted by a voice.

"Eh, uh, Tin Man? Mind stopping for a sec?" I stumbled at the perfectly wrong moment in my leaping, and ended up face planting into the concrete after falling off the roof.

"Ow." I said dumbly. When footsteps approached me rapidly from the general direction of the distracting voice, I contorted my neck into a position more commonly found on human beings than the current position, and pushed myself to my feet.

The voice was frantically apologetic now. " _Jesus_ , are you alright? Sorry about startling you!" I shook the pain off and nodded my still broken neck. I watched my health bar slowly filling up absently, noting that the damage to my overall health was pretty minor. Falls didn't do much damage, after all. "Do you need an ambulance? How on earth are you still alive, your neck was bent at a right angle!" The voice was still panicking.

I held up a hand to forestall the worried tirade. "Nah, nah, I'm fine. Just a bit lost in thought when you called out to me. What's up?" Then I noticed exactly who I was talking to. Red bodysuit, Orange visor… Yep, this was Assault, member of the Brockton Bay Protectorate, one of my role models. All of a sudden, I was glad that my helmet hid the burning blush on my face. I had just _face planted_ in front of Assault. God, I was so pathetic.

He eyed me with concern, but responded in a light tone, as though from a distance. "...If you say so, wow, you must be some kind of Brute to tank a broken neck like that. Regeneration?" He questioned. I cringed inwardly. I had wanted to keep my powers a secret but… well, I kinda _had_ just fallen off a building into what would normally be a fatal injury right in front of him. Of course he'd want to know how I'd lived through that.

"Yeah, if it's not instantly fatal, I get over it. Just a bit of a perk." I attempted to rub the back of my neck sheepishly, but was hampered in that action by my armor. Assault seemed to understand the gesture, at least.

"Well, sorry all the same, I'll try to avoid startling you in the future. Who are you? Got a cape name?" He tensed up a little here, making me wonder what could be making him nervous. Me? Surely not, this was _Assault_ , one of the strongest members of the Protectorate here in Brockton Bay. Of course, if he didn't know who I was, I suppose it was possible that my powers could be anything, to him.

Anyways, I had better answer him. "The name's Terrarian, did, uh, did Miss Militia mention our fight with Stormtiger and Cricket the other night?" Suddenly, I was uncertain. Maybe Miss Militia hadn't told the Protectorate about it? For all I knew, that wasn't anything special, just another Wednesday night for them. Nothing to write home about.

Assault's cry of recognition shook me from that train of thought. "OH! That guy that got his arm chopped off by Cricket?" He sounded _entirely_ too cheerful about that. "Miss Militia did come back and mention that some kid had some powers like hers, with some sort of Regen to boot. Didn't you have to drink some sort of healing agent last time, though?" He sounded a bit uncertain on that last point, as though he didn't think he had remembered it properly.

"Eh, that was just something to bolster my natural regeneration. It wouldn't do anything for anybody else." I said, quickly trying to dispel any thoughts that I could be some sort of Panacea-esque healer. I had already tried to test if my potions did anything for anybody else. The cat I had gotten to drink a Gills potion had completely failed to gain water-breathing organs, and the dying frog had just kept dying even after a dose of healing potion.

He made a noncommittal humming sound. "Huh, okay. Wait, weren't you wearing wooden armor last time? The picture she showed us had it look like you were wearing tree branches." His wide grin belied the teasing for what it was, though I still bristled at the statement. That armor didn't look like random wooden bits, it was very intricately carved! A work of art that was also a functional set of armor! It had been one of the first things I had managed to make with my own hands, and I was proud of it, even if it wasn't particularly effective. Wait, when had Miss Militia taken my picture?

Before I could manage to voice my annoyance at my hard work being belittled, he made a little placating gesture to silence me before speaking again. "Hey, Miss Militia mentioned that you had asked for a rain check on that tour of the Rig and PRT building. The Rig's on lockdown at the moment, Armsmaster is doing his regular bug-sweep. But hey, tomorrow's a Saturday, would you like a tour of the PRT building now, or do you have another appointment to keep?" His tone was light now, and he was pretty relaxed. I guess it must have just been the fact he hadn't known who I was earlier that created the concern.

My first instinct was to decline, but after remembering that there wasn't anyone waiting for me back home, I sighed. "You know what? Sure. I need something to take my mind off of things." Maybe a chat with some other heroes was what I needed. Surely they had had to track down some villains before, I could probably get some tips. "Lead the way?" I gestured in the general direction of the flashy structure. At least, I think it was in that direction. I had gotten a little turned around up on the roofs.

Assault grinned. "Sure thing," He paused for a moment, before drawing out the next word. " _...Woody_."

He began dashing away before my irritated squawk left my lips.

OoOoO

After a quick jog to the PRT building, I followed Assault through a small unmarked door in the lobby. It was a good thing that it was around midnight, as if it were still in visiting hours, there would probably be people taking pictures. As we walked down a hallway, Assault piped up again. "So, Aegis and Vista are out on a patrol at the moment, but Shadow Stalker, Gallant, Clockblocker, and Kid Win are all on site. Well, Kid Win _technically_ is, but it's more likely that he's dead to the world right now, tinkering.

I nodded in understanding. I might not exactly be a tinker, but I could understand the feeling of getting lost in a project. That was pretty much what happened when I crafted things on autopilot. The world would blur together for a bit, and when I resurfaced, I'd have a finished product! At least, that's how _I_ did it, I didn't really know how most tinkers worked.

He pressed a button outside a door, and I looked expectantly at it. Ten seconds later, I gave Assault a questioning look. He merely grinned, and spoke. "That's basically a doorbell. Let's 'em know that someone's coming in that they might not want seeing their faces, gives 'em a little time to throw on their masks and such." Question answered, I simply hummed in recognition of the idea. Another thirty seconds later, and a little light on the button turned green. "Alright, let's go!" He began whistling a merry tune as he pushed the door open.

In the next room, I saw an interesting sight. It looked like a fairly normal living room. Well, for a millionaire or something. There was a little kitchenette, mini fridge and microwave included, off to one side, and a big flat screen television. A flat screen television that Gallant and Clockblocker were playing a very familiar game on…

"Wait, is that Super Cape Duelists 4?" I blurted out. After all the heads in the room turned to me, I had to fight myself not to visibly wilt under the sudden scrutiny. "Ah, because, um, that's a great game. I've played it a lot. I hadn't thought that the Wards would be into that kind of thing." I mentally flailed. Why couldn't the Wards like video games, like normal people? Darnit, I always put my foot in my mouth!

The silence continued for a moment, before Clockblocker shattered it. "Oh, hey, you must be that Terrarian guy. Got rid of your wooden armor? Shame, I had a couple of puns set up." He said, cheerfully ignoring the fact that his character on the game was getting slaughtered.

Gallant groaned. "Ugh, wow, you dodged a bullet there man. At least until Clockblocker comes up with some new puns." Clockblocker hummed at that, and tried to fail at looking innocent. He succeeded.

Assault sat heavily on the couch besides the two Wards. "Eh, Terra-guy, join us. You two, start a new match. Let's psychoanalyze the independent through his SCD playstyle." His strange smile made me doubt that the claim was entirely false, actually.

But was I really going to turn down a chance to fight _real_ capes in video games? Hell no! I sat down.

The next hour was pretty fun.

OoOoO

Our ferocious game-playing was cut short by Shadow Stalker… well, stalking out of a nearby door. "Oi, Clockblocker! You were supposed to take over for your shift ten minutes ago, you asshole!" Her voice sounded kinda familiar, but I was too focused on taking down Assault's character, Eidolon, with Mouse Protector.

Five seconds later, Assault started shouting. "Bullshit! I call bullshit! Eidolon's the strongest cape in the world, no way would Mouse Protector beat him in a fight!" I grinned back at him, not that he could see it under my helmet.

"What's that? Is that… whining? Face it, man, you got schooled." I boasted. I was very proud of my skill at this game, seeing as it was the last thing dad… I mean, it was a pretty important gift from someone.

Clockblocker looked impressed. "Wow, I've never seen anyone that good at this game before. Do you play a lot?" He sounded interested, which made me happy. I haven't exactly had a friend that cared about my hobbies in a long time, unless you count Trent. Which I kinda do, actually. Maybe Clockblocker and I could hang out some other time, again.

Shadow Stalker snorted. "Hey, listen up. Who cares how good this schmuck is at video games? It's not like it's _real_ fighting. More importantly, Clock, _get your backside to the console_. I have stuff to do, moron!" You could just hear the sneer in her voice.

Assault pitched in here. "Well, little shadow," She bristled at this, but very wisely refrained from talking back to one of her direct superiors. "It just so happens that this 'Schmuck' as you call him, is not only a devil to beat at video games," Here he shot me a brief dirty look, before turning his head back to Stalker. "But he also happens to be pretty good in a real fight too. Didn't you hear? He fought off Cricket two nights ago, even if she did lop off his arm." He grinned hugely at the wide eyed stare that Clockblocker shot me. Shadow Stalker glanced at me with what was probably a disbelieving stare under her mask. Gallant just shifted uncomfortably.

I tried to chuckle to ease the tension. "I regenerate, I was fine after a minute." I checked the time, before sighing. It had been fun to hang out here for a little while, but I should probably get back home and get some work done. I still had a long way to go, according to Trent. I stood up. "Hey, uh, do I need an escort to get out of here?" I questioned Assault.

He shrugged. "It'd probably be a good idea. Next time, though, I swear I'll defeat you!" He said with mock gravity in his tone. I just laughed and followed him out the door. Waving goodbye to a solemn Clockblocker that Shadow Stalker was dragging into what was probably the Console room she had mentioned, I left the room smiling.

That had been nice.


	4. Interlude 1-A

Interlude 1.A  
Assault

Ethan yawned as he entered the debriefing room. Hannah and Colin were already present, as well as Director Piggot. As he expected, the other two heroes in the room were in costume, and Piggot, of course, was wearing her uniform. Him? He was wearing sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt, only a domino mask making a token effort at concealing his identity.

He sauntered over to one of the remaining empty chairs, and slouched into it. "What's up, M&M, Armsy?" He paused for the briefest moment before continuing, in a more respectful tone of voice. "Director". He nodded to Piggot, who nodded in return.

The Director cleared her throat. "Alright, now that we're all present, we can begin this meeting." She gave a pointed look to Ethan, who shrugged sheepishly. Well, he had pulled a pretty late night, hadn't he? They could cut him a little slack when they wake him up for a meeting he wasn't quite prepared for. Besides, 8:00 AM was too early for a meeting. 8:00 AM was too early for _anything_.

Piggot continued. "This meeting is being held to share any information we have found on the new parahuman, "Terrarian", as well as to develop strategies for neutralization in the event of his turning villain, and get a feel for whether or not he might be interested in a Wards membership." She turned to Hannah. "Miss Militia, I believe that you had first contact with him?"

Hannah nodded. "I had been on patrol, when I received a call on my radio from administration. Terrarian had called in a Vigilante Arrest for two members of the Empire 88, who had been caught assaulting a certain Warren Thresh, and his son Anthony. After confirming that Terrarian would be remaining at the scene, I was asked to debrief Terrarian and meet with him." She took a breath, and proceeded with her recounting. "Upon my arrival, however, I discovered he had been engaged in combat by Stormtiger and Cricket."

Her expression grew a bit sad, as though she regretted getting to the fight as late as she had. "He withstood Cricket's sonic attack, although it did break his eardrums, and fought her to a standstill while I engaged Stormtiger. Before they withdrew, Cricket severed Terrarian's arm from just behind the elbow before fleeing. Terrarian expressed little to no concern for the missing limb, and withdrew a serum from the same place that he keeps his weapons. After drinking the serum, his arm grew back in roughly thirty seconds. We brought the victims of the assault to the hospital, and he went on his way. End report."

Piggot nodded, and asked another question. "What powers and abilities did he demonstrate in this encounter, as detailed as you can recall?"

"High durability, to be able to withstand broken eardrums without a large decrease in his fighting capacity, prowess with a spear, and mild regeneration, even without the serum, as he recovered from the broken eardrums before drinking it. After the fight, he demonstrated his ability to shift his weapon into various other objects, claiming that all of the objects were things he had placed into a pocket dimension, that he can exchange for each other at will." Hannah paused here, before admitting, "I can't explain how the pocket dimension works, as he didn't tell me. I'm not sure that all it does is store things, though, as after he regrew his arm, his wooden armor grew back to cover it."

The Director waited, in case Hannah wanted to add something else, before nodding once more. "Alright, he didn't go out the night before last, at least, that we know, but Assault ran into him last night. Please give us your report of last night, Assault."

Ethan coughed, before beginning. "Alright, so, I was on my patrol route last night, moving along Seventh West, when I noticed someone in full iron plate mail dashing across the roofs at a _really_ fast pace. Like, not Velocity fast, but easily thirty-something miles per hour. It wouldn't have been superhuman, but he could keep that pace up for a while, all while jumping across roofs without slowing down."

Ethan shifted, slightly reluctant to bring up what happened next. "I called out to him, asking if he would mind stopping and talking for a sec. I was kinda… apprehensive, because he looked like he had taken a page out of Allfather's book, ya know? Full iron platemail, not even Kaiser does that very often, and he can only lift that with his power. Anyways, when I called out to him, he kinda tripped, and face-planted into the concrete from the roof of a building. His neck was bent at a right angle for a second, and then the rest of his body hit the ground too. I ran over, freaking out a bit, because people can't look like that without being dead, but he disagreed, I guess." Ethan rubbed his neck sheepishly.

"He sorta just stood up, and shrugged it off, before we struck up a conversation. He mentioned that he was Terrarian, and then he told me that his serum thing wouldn't work for anybody else, because it only supercharged his regeneration, not actually cause it. His neck looked like it was healed pretty fast, and he never pulled out anything like that. I brought up the possibility of that tour that M&M told him about last time, and he agreed. Sounded like he needed to get away from some bad stuff at home, I think. We went back to the PRT building, here, and he struck it off nicely with Clockblocker and Gallant. Beat me pretty badly at some video game they were playing up there. After a while, Stalker broke up our party and he decided to head out. Pretty much it, really." He rubbed his chin while in thought. "Oh! Gallant mentioned that his emotions were pretty stable. Definitely enjoyed spending some time with us."

Piggot gave a small smile, though one devoid of actual happiness. "Excellent, see if you can continue to build a rapport with him, and even if we can't get him onto the Wards, a Protectorate Affiliation would be a nice consolation prize." She placed her pen back on the report she was writing. "Additional powers you noticed that didn't surface in Miss Militia's encounter?"

Ethan shrugged. "Other than the speed? He could jump pretty high, ground to roof level, definitely. The really interesting thing is that he was wearing different armor this time than he did two days ago."

Here, Colin leaned forward. "He could be some sort of Tinker. I don't know why he would have made armor out of wood, but the fact that it regrew along with his arm is intriguing. He may have just managed to upgrade to the metal armor over the day that he didn't go out." Colin stroked his beard in consideration.

Piggot's expression grew focused. "Alright, let's put him down as a Mover 3-4, Brute 3, Tinker 2, for now. Ratings could rise, depending on what abilities that he exhibits in the future. Thank you for your attendance, dismissed." She turned her attention back to the paperwork surrounding her, and Ethan was all too glad to get out. He hoped that Terrarian stayed safe as an independent. The kid seemed like an okay dude.

Kaiser

Kaiser sat in a meeting with Hookwolf, Fenja, Menja, Stormtiger, Cricket, Othala, and Victor. The topic of discussion? Theresa Veder.

Hookwolf snarled. "We can't let the Undersiders get away with this. Theresa's one of our best tacticians, if we let some new group of rejects walk over our operations, we'll turn into a laughingstock." Stormtiger grunted in assent, and Cricket remained silent. Victor sat, uncaring, as he trimmed his fingernails, Othala sitting beside him, paying enough attention to the conversation for the both of them. The twins, Kaiser knew, would follow his lead.

Kaiser held up a hand. "Hookwolf, calm yourself. I have a plan in motion for the Undersiders." He smiled, before saying something seemingly unrelated. "Did you know that Theresa had a son? Greg Veder, age fifteen." Hookwolf seemed taken aback.

"That scrawny little runt that we saw in the hospital yesterday? _That_ pipsqueak is her son?" He shook his head in disgust. "I thought more of her, than that she would raise a child like that."

Kaiser laughed. "Hookwolf, I should think that by now you would realize that how strong someone's arm is doesn't always reveal their true potential. After all, look at Rune." His grin widened, as he waited for the larger man to grab the bait.

Hookwolf looked confused. "What are you talking about? Rune's a cape, that child…" Realization dawned. "You think the kid's a cape? Theresa wouldn't keep something like that from us."

At that, Kaiser's smile turned into a thoughtful expression. "True, Theresa wouldn't do something like that, she's far too loyal. She would never hold such a resource away from us…" Kaiser's grin returned full force, more predatory than before. "...Assuming that she knew."

Othala spoke up here. "I don't see how the boy could have hidden it from her, I've worked with Theresa, and she's very observant. I've even heard her mention her son a few times, and she made him out to be a bit of an… obtuse chatterbox, to be blunt." Othala was still a bit upset that she couldn't heal Theresa, as the woman's injuries were publicly known. A sudden recovery would reveal Mrs. Veder's connections to the Empire, so Othala would have to content herself with ensuring that Theresa was in top condition after her release.

Kaiser waved this tidbit away. "True, Theresa was very skilled, and certainly observant. But she's shown in the past that her family has always been a bit of a blind spot." The reminder caused everyone in the room to wince, even Victor, who had put away the trimmers.

"...Granted," Hookwolf grumbled. "You saw something in him, yesterday, didn't you. You came to this conclusion from a single chance meeting?"

Kaiser's expression grew serious. "Indeed. After being informed of her injuries, the boy rallied himself, and asked me who was to blame. I could see a desire for vengeance in his eyes, but more than that, I saw confidence, determination. The boy believes he _can_ defeat the Undersiders, and he's making plans to."

"So let's let the boy do so. He'll prove himself to us, by doing exactly what we want. We don't even have to ask. Make a note to some of the sub-lieutenants, Victor, that they should try to subtly veer young Mr. Veder towards his peers in the Empire."

After the meeting's conclusion, Kaiser steepled his hands, and considered the boy. Aryan ideal, good solid determination. Not the most chiseled physique, true, but that could come in time. When he mentally compared the fiery eyes of Theresa's son to the watery pair belonging to his own son, he found them to be a great deal better suited for the heir of the Empire.

Theresa, he decided, definitely wasn't bad looking. Perhaps, in the event that young Greg was confirmed to be a cape, he should try to bring the small family into the Empire more firmly.

OoOoO

 ** _Author Note:_** Sorry about the tiny chapter today, I'm not a huge fan of interludes, but I need them.

Weird, sorry if you got the strange garbled version, it's fixed now.


	5. 1-4

1.4

The next week went by in a blur of strangeness. I made very little progress on more excursions into the underground, only having found one more chest with an accessory, a small red bracelet that gave me a permanent regeneration boost, but none of my weapons or armor got an upgrade. I headed out into the city several times, as well, but the Undersiders had apparently decided to lay low after the incident at the pharmacy, and I didn't find hide nor hair of them.

All of that was fairly ordinary, though, not entirely unexpected. The thing that made that week strange was school. For one thing, Taylor was nowhere to be found, and any of the other students I dared ask about her just mumbled that they didn't know. After a while, I just had to throw my hands up in defeat, and wait until I next saw her to ask.

Another strange thing about school, is that people I'd never really talked to before were coming up to me and giving me their condolences about my mom. Making me offers of hanging out, and inviting me to sit with them at lunch. I was kinda touched, actually. I refused the offers to hang out, but accepted sitting with them at lunch. I didn't pay too much attention to their conversations, but it was nice to be in a group of people that were laughing, talking, all that.

Mom hadn't woken up, yet, which was making me worry. Didn't Mr. Anders say that she should be fully recovered soon? Didn't that include waking up? Where was Panacea? Still in Europe. Hell, I'd settle for Othala at this point, and thank her besides. If I didn't think my name was mud with the Empire, I'd heavily consider going to them and asking for some sort of deal for her assistance. I wish my health potions worked on other people.

I took the bus home from the hospital, feeling dejected. Things would be better if mom would just wake up. Thinking about her lying there made the feelings of rage stir back up within me. I was going to ask Trent if he had any other ideas, because it was getting harder and harder to get any deeper underground, and I was getting fewer benefits from doing so in any case.

OoOoO

Trent looked thoughtful when I asked him. "Well, going deeper underground _would_ be helpful, but you aren't really prepared for the Dungeon or the cavern layers yet." Layers? Was this world an onion? "Maybe… no, you'd need explosives to get through the Corruption or Crimson… Ah! The Jungle. You'll have to be very careful, of course, but if you construct safe houses to fall back to, the jungle should be doable." Trent beamed, happy to find a way to help me.

He pointed in a direction. "The jungle should be in that direction, roughly, just keep going until you find it." I thanked him for his help, and gathered the materials I would need to build some safe houses in my inventory. One thing I had managed to gather in large quantities from my subterranean expeditions were cobwebs, which, and I'm not even sure how I managed this, I had spun into silk at our loom. I now had several beds. Beds made out of webbing- okay, not continuing that line of thought.

I set out on my way. The trip was going to send me further from the shack than I had ever dared to go before, so I was on edge. If the area around the shack, a place where I'd managed to get slaughtered dozens and dozens of times, was considered a 'Safe Zone', then what on earth would I find in this jungle? Cresting another hill, I glanced off into the distance. I saw a mountain of purple stone, with strange shapes flying around it. None of them had wings.

I shuddered, glad that it wasn't in my path. On my journey, I found another wooden chest inside a rock outcropping, and opened it to discover what appeared to be a small screen. I checked it for an on switch, but found nothing. Withdrawing it into my inventory, I considered it. Looked like an accessory of some sort. Well, I had one more empty slot, let's try it out!

Equipping it, I immediately noticed a change in my perspective. I now _knew_ for a fact that there were four creatures in my immediate vicinity, and that none of them were hostile. I swung my head around, confirming the locations of the creatures, and shook my head in amazement. My power could give me more powers, seemingly on a whim. Doesn't that make me a sort of Trump? I got my thoughts back on track, continuing on towards the jungle. I reached a river that ran with ordinary water until it reached a group of red trees, at which point the water turned teal. I raised an eyebrow. Huh, apparently I can use nearby water sources as an indicator of where I am, by checking what color they are.

I checked my surroundings for danger, not wanting to rely solely on my new danger sense, and started chopping down the trees. I quickly fashioned logs to construct my safe house, and made the furniture I hadn't brought with me. I set the newly constructed cabin as my… "Spawning Location" thing, and closed my eyes.

OoOoO

Earlier that week, I had set up a joint patrol with some of the Wards, which was why I was now heading to the PRT building. The Wards I was meeting for this venture were Clockblocker and Shadow Stalker. I was fairly pleased about the opportunity to work with someone I would tentatively call a friend, if a little bit dubious about working with someone that PHO had dubbed "One of the most violent former vigilantes."

I dropped onto the pavement about a block away from the PRT building, squinting a little through the evening dimness. It was gonna be a moonless night, so it was darker than normal. I debated for a moment while I walked, and decided to quickly down a Night Owl potion, to let me see in the dark. I blinked a few times as the potion took effect, but I noticed immediately when it did.

The world that had, moments before, been mostly shadows with a few points of light, was now a perfectly lit landscape that faded into black free a few blocks. I raised my eyebrows in appreciation. This was pretty handy, seeing as it didn't come with the normal drawbacks that night vision goggles or thermal goggles did. I noted that street lamps seemed dimmer than before as well. Perhaps the effects of the potion brought light levels to a happy medium from both ends of the spectrum, protecting me from both blinding light and obscuring darkness.

I came to a stop in front of the PRT building and hesitated. Did they want me to come in, or were they going to meet me out here? I was rescued from my indecision by the arrival of Shadow Stalker, who strode out of the building towards me.

"Clockblocker got a bit held up, so he'll be a few more minutes." She sounded like this was a personal offense to her, and I had to stop myself from backing away. We stood in silence for a few minutes, before she spoke. "Did Cricket actually chop off your arm?" I nodded. "...And you're fine now? No visit to Panacea?"

"She's doing a medical tour of Europe at the moment." I knew that all too well.

"Huh." She said, apparently impressed. "Regeneration at that level is pretty rare, especially if it doesn't take the mass out of you. Yours doesn't, right?"

"Nah." I had a sudden urge to mess with her. "Here, watch." I materialized my sword, and chopped off my hand.

She jumped, shouting. " _Holy shit!_ Are you _nuts?_ " She looked torn between getting away from the madman, and attacking me.

"Watch." I repeated, in the same calm tone. I held up my stump, and flesh started creeping up into the place, knitting itself into the shape of a hand, until my hand was once again whole and unmarred. Just behind the skin's growth, my gauntlet rematerialized. "Neat, isn't it?" I spoke in an exaggeratedly cheerful voice. She was speechless, which was apparently notable, as this was the point that Clockblocker showed up.

"What's up, Stalker? You look spooked." Clockblocker walked up to us with an easy stride. "Is Terrarian here too intimidating? You gonna go swap Vista for console duty?"

This snapped her out of her fugue, and she bristled. "This idiot just chopped off his hand to show me his regeneration. Who does that?!" She was practically shrieking.

I coughed. "Someone that knows that anything they do will heal? It's not a big deal, really. _Way_ worse stuff happened to me while I was training." I preferred to consider the first few nights of my power as training, involuntary as it had been. I was beginning to think I had done something wrong, though, in this encounter. Of course, my social skills weren't the greatest even before my repeated psychological trauma, so I wasn't quite sure what. Maybe my joke had been in bad taste.

I sank a little in embarrassment. "Sorry, I've been told my sense of humor leaves a lot to be desired."

Clockblocker and Shadow Stalker shared a glance, before he Clockblocker coughed. "Oh-kay, well, let's get this patrol underway. Here, Terrarian, have this radio that the PRT has instructed me to issue you. Standard disclaimer: We won't be tracking you through it, and we won't call you, we'll wait for you to call us." I accepted the proffered radio with gratitude. This would be useful, for this and future patrols. Clockblocker continued. "Now, I assume that Shadow Stalker will want to do her patrol from the roof, like normal. Do you want to handle the roofs on the other side of the street, or hang out here on the ground with me?"

I considered the options for a moment, before deciding. "I'll take the opposite roofs. It'll be easier for me to spot anything from up there."

Clockblocker snorted. "In this darkness? Good luck."

I shifted, not wanting to reveal more of my powers, but realizing that it might be unavoidable if I want this patrol to be at all productive. "The darkness won't be a problem, I have night-vision." He looked interested at that tidbit, but didn't pry, for which I was grateful. I turned and leaped up onto the roof, before settling into a pace to match the easy walk that Clockblocker set on the street. Shadow Stalker's movements on the opposite roof seemed rather rigid, which I frowned at. What was her problem? I shrugged, before letting my mind work on other things.

After about twenty minutes of meandering through the streets, I empathized with her a lot more. We wouldn't get _anything_ done at this rate! My thoughts of frustration were pierced by a sudden question from Clockblocker.

"Hey, so where'd you get that armor?" He asked me. "That looks pretty high quality, must have cost you a pretty penny." The question jarred me, but I also felt flattered. Other people thought it was high quality? Yes!

Still, didn't want to sound like I was bragging here. "Uh, actually, I made it." I tried to keep my pride out of my tone, but I probably failed miserably. I _was_ proud of this, damnit!

He whistled. "No, really? That's crazy man! Did you, like, beat it into shape or something? Some sort of tinker-tech reshaping thing or whatever?"

That surprised me even more. "Er, what? No, I made it the old fashioned way. Smelting the metal, hammer on the anvil, all that jazz." Quiet, I told myself, you're talking about your powers too much! Don't tell anyone you don't trust implicitly, and while Clockblocker seems like a nice guy, he's almost certainly going to be telling his higher ups about this conversation.

He seemed sufficiently awed, however, which made me feel happy in spite of myself. "Wow, that sounds pretty awesome. I'm guessing you made the wooden suit of armor they were talking about too?" I mumbled an affirmative. This had turned into more fishing for information than I was comfortable with. Luckily, he seemed to catch onto my discomfort, and gone silent again.

Just in time for my new sixth sense to inform me that there were enemies nearby. "Hold up, I'm getting a read on some hostiles nearby." I turned to face the direction that was mentally pulling on my mind, and scanned for movement. There! Some merchants were spraying their tag on a storefront. Wow, not even on a brick wall, but the actual glass of a store? Blatant, not to mention cruel to the poor store owner who would have to clean it off.

"Alright, I see some merchants defacing private property, a block south of your position Clockblocker. What's the procedure for this sort of thing?" I asked into my radio.

Instead of Clockblocker, Shadow Stalker answered me. "Stop them, call it in." She made a running jump towards me from her roof, and flew over the street in her shadow state. She turned solid just as she hit the surface next to me, and came to a rolling crouch. I materialized my boomerang, and ran towards the edge of the roof, towards the merchants. Dropping onto the street without losing my momentum, I threw my boomerang at one, and tackled the other. Neither of them had even managed to turn around before I had them both sprawled on the street, groaning.

Picking myself up, I noted Shadow Stalker hitting the street lightly next to me, before she rematerialized. She gave me an approving nod, and then pulled out two pairs of handcuffs. Seeing as I didn't know how to use the modern ones that she had, I stepped back, to let her place them on the two. I really should ask to be shown how to use those, sometime.

Clockblocker ran up to us from the alleyway he had chosen to cross the line of buildings that Stalker and I had simply leaped over. He was breathing hard, and gasping. "...Darn… Movers… Phew, alright, so you guys handled it? Nice. Want me to call it in?"

Shadow Stalker shook her head. "Actually, it was all him," she stated, pointing at me. "He had them both out before I even hit the ground." Clockblocker gave me a thumbs up, and refrained from answering her, opting instead to continue trying to get back his breath.

Suddenly, my danger sense flared, and there wasn't any time to warn the others. Instead, I leaped and pulled them both to the floor. Overhead, something whizzed by and broke through the window of the store we had just halted the vandalizing of.

A raspy, unpleasant voice shouted at us. "Oi! You bastards, what're you doing to my guys?" Shadow Stalker and I were the first ones to our feet. She immediately pulled out her crossbow, and began to shoot bolts at the figure. The air in front of the mysterious challenger flared blue, and the bolts were suddenly reflected, spinning through the air to hit the pavement around us.

Shadow Stalker swore, before speaking in a low tone. "Skidmark, damn. Alright, so we're _supposed_ to retreat and call for backup whenever we're engaged by an enemy cape, but I'll be damned if I let him take back his little stooges without a fight. Ya with me?" I nodded. Clockblocker groaned at our discussion, but stayed silent. Apparently, the idea of these two getting away with it grated on him as well. With our assent, she nodded. "Alright, so my shadow state messes with Skidmark's fields a bit, I need to figure out how thick he made them, and that'll cost me a few bolts. See if you can distract him. His fields aren't that big, so try to circle around him."

I nodded, and Clockblocker decided to pull a thin cloak out of his pack, which he threw into the air around him, before freezing it. Perfect, now he and the two merchants were shielded from collateral damage of our fight. Skidmark was still yelling profanity at us, but I tuned him out.

Shadow Stalker leaped onto the roof of a nearby car and catapulted herself over a tree, onto another rooftop, where she began to take measured shots at Skidmark. His field foiled several shots, but then one pierced through, unfortunately missing the man behind it.

I dashed around him, dodging a hail of broken bottles, bricks, and… garbage wrappers? Really? The Merchants were definitely the least powerful or influential gang in the city, but it was times like this that it really showed. Heck, he could be doing more damage with a box of nails. Was he stupid?

It turned out, that while I thought I was distracting him, he was actually distracting me. My danger sense flared again, but this time, I wasn't able to do anything before I was struck by what felt like a cannonball, launching me into - and through, - a nearby tree. Groaning, I picked myself up, ignoring the impacts of broken glass against my armor. Focusing on the direction that the shot had come from, I noticed… what appeared to be a makeshift tank. Darn, Squealer was here too? I suppose she must have been Skidmark's ride. She had been outside of the range of my danger sense when she shot me, and the round had moved at a fast enough speed that I wasn't able to get out of the way in time.

I scowled, before running in her direction, trusting that Shadow Stalker could handle Skidmark in the meantime. Squealer tried to take more shots at me while I approached, but now that I knew her game, I didn't play it. I leaped higher than her barrel could aim, and landed directly on the roof of her vehicle, before swapping out my boomerang for my spear.

I stabbed the spear through the glass of the cockpit, causing Squealer to live up to her name in the process, before smashing it through the control panel she had been operating. She scrambled backwards while I did this, causing me to note that she had not been wearing a seatbelt.

Really? Safety first, lady.

Then I reached in and forced the cursing and spitting woman to the floor. I held her in place with one hand, and opened the vehicle door with the other, before dragging her behind me back towards the others. The sight that met me wasn't exactly what I was hoping, as apparently Skidmark had gotten smarter about things, launching ball bearings, wherever he had gotten those from, and other objects at Shadow Stalker's cover.

Stalker, on the other hand, was compensating by ducking across the roof whenever she had an opening, and taking a potshot at the man. I ran towards her, tucking Squealer under an arm, before leaping up next to her.

She looked up at me. "Oh, you got Squealer? Good job. I just ran out of bolts, so I'm a bit less useful against Skidmark now." I nodded, before holding my captive towards her. Stalker got the unspoken message, and quickly secured Squealer with cuffs, ignoring her angry protests.

I spoke my mind on the fight. "Skidmark's fields pretty much negate all my weapons, and hand to hand won't work for the same reason. If you had more bolts, do you think you could nail him while I distract him? Hopefully without an interruption this time." I gestured at Squealer on that last note.

Shadow Stalker nodded. "Yeah, but I'm out of bolts." In answer, I leapt off the roof. Skidmark had stopped pelting us with debris when he saw our captive, and he appeared to be talking into a phone. Not good, we had to end this before Mush showed up. I dashed over to the tree that had broken my fall earlier, though it had broken in the process. I snapped off a few of the smaller branches, and scanned my mind for recipes.

There! Crossbow bolts. I toggled the little switch in my head, and watched my body from the outside as it blurred into motion. Fletchery is an interesting thing to watch, but even though I was doing it, I'm not at all sure how I would explain the process. Basically, I saw that my hands were moving in a blur around the sticks they were holding, and as I watched, they were magically turned into crossbow bolts. Once I had about 15, I made a running jump back up to Shadow Stalker, handing her my creations.

She was taken aback. "How did you- never mind, I'll ask later. For now, let's get that asshole." I nodded, glad she was able to postpone her questioning for later. I stepped off the roof, running directly for Skidmark, who sneered and put up some more barriers. Just before colliding with them, I veered off to the side. I began circling around him, pulling out my spear once more. Anywhere he didn't have covered with a field, I would move to jab my spear into the gap, stopping just before I hit the field he would throw up in a frantic haste.

I was pleased to see that he could apparently only handle a limited number of fields at a time, as some fields would flicker and vanish as others appeared. He was spinning in place, panicking while trying to keep up with my pace. I would stop and switch directions at random, hoping to get him to slip up.

Before this could go on too much longer, though, he suddenly cried out and dropped to his knee. Most of the fields vanished at that point, and I capitalized on the distraction by moving in and clocking him in the head.

He swore as he fell, before he began rolling on the ground in pain. I held him down, while he tried to form more fields to get me away. The manton limit, however, stopped him from making any fields directly on me. After a moment, he stopped struggling as hard and settled for glaring at me.

Shadow Stalker landed next to me again. "Damn, man, you're pretty awesome. Squealer and Skidmark? Not the biggest catch, yeah, but pretty damn impressive all the same. Clock just told me that Armsmaster should be here any moment now, and the PRT van won't be far behind."

I paused a moment, trying to remember something important. "Oh, Skidmark was calling someone when he saw we had Squealer. I bet that Mush is on his way. We need to get these two in custody before he can try to break them out. She had cuffed and restrained Skidmark at this point, so I reached down and, with a grunt, hoisted him over one of my shoulders in a fireman's carry. "Do you think you can carry Squealer? I'm pretty strong, but this guy's heavy." She gave me a look.

"We're not all Brutes, man. I doubt I can hold a woman that weighs at least 130 pounds and move." I hissed in frustration. I didn't want these two to make it away, damnit!

The sound of a motorcycle pulling up eased my worries a little, though. Sweet, it's Armsmaster! I'm going to get to meet Armsmaster!

OoOoO

 ** _Author Note:_** Sorry I'm posting this later than I meant to, I got a bit caught up in things.


	6. 1-5

1.5

When Armsmaster parked his motorcycle on the street nearby, I sagged a little in relief. With him here, the odds of Mush being able to take his bosses back from us had gone down a lot. As Armsmaster walked up to us, Clockblocker scrambled out from under his cover.

As the power-armored man reached us, he stated a command to Shadow Stalker. "Report."

She didn't appear to like being ordered around, but she obeyed. "While we were on patrol, Terrarian noticed some merchants defacing private property. We apprehended them, and were attacked by Squealer and Skidmark. Terrarian took down Squealer, and then assisted me in taking down Skidmark. End report." She uttered the last two words as though they tasted bad. If I had to guess, she didn't like being a part of a command structure. I wonder why she joined the wards?

After Armsmaster administered some sedatives to our captives, he turned to me. "Terrarian, correct? I'm Armsmaster, Leader of the Brockton Bay Protectorate. By the fact that you have been doing hero work for a little over a week now, I assume that you considered and rejected the idea of joining the Wards?" I nodded, uncomfortable. "Would you be willing to tell me why?"

I spent a moment gathering my thoughts, before replying. "Well, I actually really like the idea of joining the Wards, but I have some family circumstances I have to deal with. I don't know long that will take me, though." That was one way of saying I needed to hunt down the Undersiders. Plus, there was the whole, 'Haven't told my mom I'm a cape,' deal. Not sure if I wanted to tell her, she'd probably make me join the Empire, which would be awkward.

He seemed to freeze for a few moments, but then he nodded. "Very well. When you change your mind, contact us." He handed me a Protectorate business card. His power suit flickered as he moved. Man, Armsmaster was so cool! I'm glad he seemed to be okay with my holding off on the Wards. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to join, as doing so would require me to reveal my status as a parahuman to my Mom. I mean, she knows something's up, but I had been pretty careful to time my outing when I knew she wouldn't be home until early the next morning, and since then… yeah, she hasn't had much of an opportunity to catch me.

I stopped thinking about that. Armsmaster readied Squealer and Skidmark for transport, so I set my focus on keeping an eye out for a possible ambush by Mush. My night vision hadn't run out yet, and according to my status, wouldn't do so for another 2 hours and 17 minutes.

We were lucky, or Mush wasn't stupid, and nothing happened. I ran over the roofs on one side of the street, watching over the PRT van, while Shadow Stalker did the same thing from the roofs on the other side. Clockblocker rode in the van with the PRT Officers, and Armsmaster led the way on his motorcycle. He wasn't going quite as fast as he could, obviously, as then he would leave us all far behind.

When we reached the PRT building, some more officers came out and escorted the two Merchant capes to holding cells within. I gave my statement to an officer, and had just exited through one of the side-entrances when Shadow Stalker caught up to me.

"Hey, it was nice patrolling with someone else who's actually combat effective for once. Here." She tossed me a bag. Peering inside, I saw what appeared to be a burner phone. "Sometimes, I go on solo patrols. Next time I do, I'll send you a message on that, and you're free to join me." Then she walked back into the building.

Huh. I guess I must have made a good impression on her. I still wasn't sure what I thought of her. She had kinda been a jerk to Clockblocker, but it was… also fairly understandable. I hadn't born the brunt of much, but he seemed like the person that tested the limits of the sanity of everyone around him.

Also, she was pretty hot.

Thus decided, I admitted that I'd probably agree to go on the occasional patrol with her in the future. Then, I headed home.

OoOoO

Back in the little shack that I had constructed in the jungle of Terraria, I reappeared. I glanced around the structure, before heading out into the jungle.

My first impression on this place, was that it was kinda… horrific. There were orange bats that attacked from above, giant piranhas in the waters, and slimes emerging through the brush. Don't even get me _started_ on the snapping plants! Those things are freaky, long necks/stems that lead into a giant claw-like face, with jaws like pincers.

I immediately set about digging a mine shaft, building over the top of the shaft with a set of doors. Fortunately, none of the denizens were capable of opening doors, thank god. As I tunneled downwards, I ran into the occasional deposit of copper, which made me a little sad that I didn't actually need it anymore. I would need to ask Trent if there were any other things I could make out of copper.

After what seemed like an eternity of tunneling, my shaft opened up into… what I imagine Hell would look like, if it were filled with bees instead of fire.

GIANT bees. I quickly covered back up the opening. Alright, first things first, I would need to light up the area out there a lot more, before creating small openings I could shoot the bees through, with my boomerang.

I set to work. I tunneled sideways now, recovering any points that I accidentally breached, before continuing on my way. I actually found a small chamber that was uninhabited, made of a strange brown brick. A pedestal in the center of the chamber held a chest made of ornately carved wood, surrounded by green torches. Interesting, how long have these torches been lit?

An interesting thing about this world I had noticed, is that most sources of fire? Never went out. Didn't exactly burn through the wood they were placed on, either. Just… spontaneous flames. It had weirded me out a lot at first, but I had gotten over it. It was pretty handy, after all.

I opened the chest with barely contained excitement. Inside, I found the standard fare for golden chests, some money, which I could apparently spend at the various merchants that would show up. I hadn't seen any yet, but Trent told me some would pop along when I was prepared. I thought I was pretty dang ready for some shopping, but apparently not. There was also a few potions, including a strange purple one I hadn't seen before.

The real prize of this chest, however, was the gun. I knew pretty much nothing about guns themselves, but as per usual, by picking up this one, I knew exactly how to hold it and fire it properly. Handy of my powers, that. There were some bullets in there too, which I placed in the Ammo section of my inventory.

Change of plans, instead of my boomerang, I was going to use this gun. Yeah!

OoOoO

What felt like a few hours later, but was probably closer to one hour, I sat down heavily onto some moss in the cavern. That had been pretty fun! I had run out of ammo for my shotgun, but I had managed to slaughter dozens of bees, and a few horrifying _bigger_ versions of the plant creatures on the surface. They popped out of small, unassuming holes in the wall, and probably would have given me a heart attack if I wasn't immune to stuff like that.

I had retrieved stingers from the majority of the bees I had killed, and some long vine things from the plant creatures. There were strange glowing green plants lying all over the place, that Trent had advised me to collect. Not entirely sure why, I did so. I was just about ready to move back up to my safe house to prepare for the trek back to the shack, when I noticed a shiny box.

Wow, today was my lucky day! I had gotten a gun, torn my way through the jungle, and now I was going to get some loot from a gold chest! I returned to my feet quickly, before bounding over to the chest. I opened it quickly, and reached in. Some potions, blah blah blah… a mirror?

I took it out, and turned it over in my hands. Was it magic or something? I looked into the mirror, seeing my reflection. Well, the reflection of my armor, at least. Then I noticed something weird.

In the mirror, I was standing, not in the jungle cavern that I most certainly _was_ currently standing in, but instead in the shack I had set up outside the mine shaft. Perplexed, I reached my other hand to the surface of the mirror, rubbing at it to try and figure out why the locations were different, when suddenly-

-Blue light filled my vision-

-and I was standing in the safe house. What the what? I glanced around, almost startled enough to drop the mirror, but I managed to catch it before it hit the floor. It would have been fine, but it was still a habit of mine to try and catch things I dropped on accident. Probably a good habit to keep, things in the real world weren't quite as durable as the things here were.

I reached over and withdrew my bed, the anchor for the cabin, into my inventory. Then, I turned to the door of the shack and reached for the knob- before pausing. I pulled out the magic mirror again, and grinned widely. Just as I thought! My reflection in the mirror showed me standing in Trent's hut. I laughed aloud, before rubbing the mirror.

OoOoO

Startling Trent had been fun, but then I got to business. Walking over to my anvil, I opened my mind to all the recipes that flew around in there, I mentally moved my gaze to the group of jungle recipes. Let's see, I've got armor, a huge sword, a… chakram? Looked like a plant-like discus. Probably like my boomerang, then. The thing that I drew up short at, though, was a strange harness of vines.

"Hey, Trent, do you know what this… harness thing is? It's showing up as something I can make from these vines." I tossed him a vine, as Trent could apparently examine an object and come up with a list of things that require it as an ingredient, before telling me about those objects' purposes.

He looked it over for a second before smiling. "Ah, the Ivy Whip would be an excellent choice, you don't have a grappling hook yet, do you?"

I blinked. "Wait, that harness thing is a grappling hook? What?" I was a little confused at how that worked, though my power had done stranger things, so if Trent said it was a grappling hook, it probably was.

He turned the smile from the vine back to me, and tossed it back over. "You should make it, it's one of the highest quality hooks you could possibly make in the near future. Multi-grip cords are the best grappling hooks." Not knowing how to respond to that, I decided that Trent hadn't steered me wrong yet, and I might answer some of my own questions by just _making_ the darn thing.

I allowed my hands to shape the vines and spores together for a moment, not entirely sure at which point the object ceased looking like a salad, and turned into a tough-looking harness with rose flowers and thorns. Seriously, how did that work?

Checking my inventory, I glanced through the Equipment section for a Hook slot. Yep, there it was. Placing the 'Ivy Whip' into that slot, I looked down at myself. Where was the harness? How on earth did this thing work?

Trent spotted my consternation, and pointed to the door. "Run outside for a bit, focus on one of the trees out there, and see if you can get the Ivy Whip to work. Practice for a bit, you won't regret it. Grappling hooks are a basic necessity for living." I bit my tongue to avoid asking him why he didn't have one, as I knew that I would always get the same answer. _'I'm not the Terrarian, Greg, you are.'_

I stood around outside for a bit, like an idiot, feeling like Spiderman probably did when he was trying to figure out how to shoot web. I surreptitiously attempted the iconic hand gesture that he had used for web-slinging, and was mildly relieved when it didn't work. I definitely didn't want people to think I was trying to copy Spiderman.

I was so caught up in my activity that I didn't notice when darkness began to fall, or when a reddish hue overtook the landscape…

OoOoO

A few hours later, I hobbled back into the shack while my injuries healed and my armor rippled back into one piece. The only _real_ positive outcome of the night had been that I had instinctively activated the Ivy Whip when a crowd of zombies appearing nearly simultaneously interrupted my thoughts via my danger sense. After practicing above the crowd of zombies through the trees with my awesome new grappling hook, I descended to the forest floor to demolish them.

What I hadn't been expecting? The zombies covered in a mass of bloody flesh, and the creepy floating bags of eyes and, yep, blood. I was glad that zombie-remains disappeared with their bodies when they died, or I would never feel clean again.

Trent glanced up at me, relieved. "Whew, you managed to avoid dying on your first Blood Moon, kid, great job!" He gave me a thumbs-up.

I replied in monotone. "Gee, I wonder why they call it that." Let's see, red moon, zombies and flying horrors made out of blood, yep, obviously it's a Blood Moon.

Now that I was free from combat, I was going to finish making the items that _would_ have been _oh so_ useful for that fight that I had just been in. I _knew_ I should have made myself the armor and sword first. Grumbling to myself, I set about creating the gear.

After making those items, I reached for the mental schematic for the Chakram, only to realize I was short a few stingers. Damnit, I didn't have the time to go back to the jungle for more, I was going to be starting another of my "Undersider Hunts" soon, and though I didn't really expect to find them, I knew that I certainly wouldn't if I didn't try. They couldn't lay low forever, and if they did, then that was a victory in and of itself.

Since I couldn't make the Chakram, I guess that I'd have to stick with my boomerang for ranged combat, seeing as I had run out of bullets. Speaking of which…

I spoke up. "Hey, Trent, didn't you say that some shopkeepers would show up when I was ready? Where are they?"

Trent merely looked puzzled. "Ready? You're not ready for them. Where are they going to stay?" He responded in a puzzled tone.

I nearly tripped in realization, which would have been both impressive and pitiful, because I was kneeling. "Wait, I have to build them _houses?!_ "

OoOoO

I had returned to the real world soon after that conversation, having decided that I didn't have time to build more huts before my hunt either. I was still annoyed that I had misunderstood Trent, and I didn't want to take it out on him, as it wasn't really his fault, it was mine.

I walked casually to an alleyway, checking the vicinity in every way I could, sight, hearing, and my danger sense, before determining it safe for me to quickly suit up and take to the roofs.

I'll find you at some point Undersiders, and the longer you put this off, the stronger and more prepared I'll be.


	7. Interlude 1-B

Interlude 1.B  
Coil

Coil leaned back in his chair and sighed. Every night for the past week, he had tried to have the Undersiders pull off some sort of heist. Increasing their notoriety was a large point in his plans, as they would become an effective tool to incite fear in a target.

But he had a problem. Each night, he would split timelines. In one timeline, he would have the Undersiders go out to perform whatever robbery he had designated, and in the other, they would remain at their base, safe and sound.

He had given them a few days of rest after they robbed the Pharmacy, and then he had tried to send them out. They hadn't been more than a few minutes on the scene before someone wearing iron armor had shown up and began attacking them furiously. They had managed to defeat him, but he had managed to kill two of Bitch's dogs first, so Bitch had killed him in retaliation.

While he wanted the Undersiders to gain some notoriety, he didn't want to add any more murder charges to them. In addition, Bitch's dogs had made up a large part of their firepower, so losing them meant a weakened group, in addition to Bitch going mad with grief. So, he would collapse the timeline into the the one where they had never gone out at all.

This had, in a similar fashion, occured night after night, and he was getting pretty annoyed. He couldn't find very much information on this "Terrarian," other than the sparse few details in the PRT report. Apparently, he could create armor and weapons on the fly from base materials around him, he had a decent mover rating for his fast pace and ability to jump over a dozen feet into the air, enhanced strength combined with regeneration, and a plethora of weapons that he pulled out of a pocket dimension. He had tried, in various attempts, to get the Undersiders to take him down without killing him, but apparently the armored parahuman's Brute rating was a little exaggerated, as he would continue fighting right up to the point of death. Mostly fine after one hit, but then the next simply killed him.

So, this time, he would try something new. He had noted that early on in his cape career, Terrarian had had a scuffle with some Empire capes, and he imagined that they might want a rematch. Except… He still didn't know what ethnicity that Terrarian was. They might attempt to conscript or recruit him, and he didn't want the Empire to get another cape, especially one with such a diverse skill set.

He should try to ensure that a fight would occur. Considering his options, he paged through reports from his spies in the various groups of Brockton Bay. Noting that the Empire had apparently rescheduled a raid on some of Lung's shipments from a week and a half prior for some reason, he pondered a moment, before deciding.

He would have one of his members in the ABB "discover" that the Empire was going to attack, and inform Lung. Then he would have the Undersiders lure Terrarian to the location, entangling him in the battle, before retreating. At the very least, he would be able to observe more of Terrarian's abilities. If he was incredibly fortunate, then the young cape just might get himself killed by one of the two gangs. Nodding to himself, Coil enacted his plan.

OoOoO  
Tattletale

Tattletale wasn't too sure about this plan. Coil had assured her that he had fail-safes in play in the event of the worst coming to pass, but she was still leery of it. Apparently, they had to attract the attention of some new hero calling himself "Terrarian". Tattletale hadn't been able to get too much information about him, other than a basic rundown of his powers, and a few blurry pictures. It was enough for her power to inform her that he made all his own gear, though the exact means eluded her. For now, though, she had to go inform the rest of the crew.

She walked into the main room of their base. They had taken to lounging around in there for the majority of the past week, as Coil would call to have them gather up, but then not give them a job to do. It was something he had done occasionally in the past, but he had done it every day this week, which was odd. Tattletale's power wasn't too forthcoming on the reason, either. It told her that he was going to have them do a job, and that they stayed in the room as a safety precaution somehow.

She spoke up. "Alright, guys, Coil's got a job for us." She waited for the inevitable outburst.

Regent, currently playing some game on a console, looked up and spoke loudly. "Frickin' finally! We've been sitting around for a week!" She agreed, in her head, but still mentally frowned at the conflicting information that her power had been giving her regarding Coil's plans. Perhaps he had been testing some sort of anti-thinker device? If so, it had been working somewhat. She had no idea what he wanted.

Grue merely smiled. "That's good, what's the job?" As the nominal team leader, Grue took his job seriously, and wanted to help the others stay safe. A good sentiment, even if Tattletale's cynicism prevented her from truly believing that he would be able to make it through the next five years without getting broken down repeatedly until not even he believed in the possibility of safety.

"There's a new cape around Brockton Bay, calls himself Terrarian. He's often seen dashing around rooftops at speeds that would make Olympic Sprinters jealous, while wearing full iron plate mail. Notable feats include fighting off Cricket after she chopped off his arm, and taking down Squealer and Skidmark, who have yet to be broken out of jail by Mush. Who knows, they might actually get sent to a prison that can hold them this time." She doubted it.

Regent held a hand up. "Wait, this guy's got a whole medieval knight theme going on? What kind of Brute is he?" That was a surprisingly competent question to get out of Alec, which mildly disoriented her.

"Ratings have him at Brute 3, mostly because of his regeneration. He regrew the arm that Cricket chopped off pretty fast, and he tends to ignore bullets, though whether that's because his armor is that strong, or he regenerates fast enough not to care, we don't know. He's really fast, too, which is the real problem in a fight. His main combat method, though, revolves around the fact that he can materialize various weapons he stores somewhere, kinda like Miss Militia." She expounded.

Grue frowned. "Guy sounds dangerous to fight."

Tattletale gave a cheshire grin at that. "Which is why that isn't our job. We just have to lure him to a scuffle between the Empire and ABB, who will be causing enough property damage that our aspiring hero will have little choice but to give up a chase on non-destructive small-timers like us, and get the Protectorate to help him interfere with the gangs." She had to admit, that part of the plan was… fairly solid. Assuming, of course, that Bitch's dogs were fast enough to keep ahead of Terrarian. With Regent helping with tripping him up occasionally, and Grue interfering with his power, though, they should be able to manage.

She just wished she knew what was so special about this guy that Coil wanted him in the gang fight anyways.

OoOoO

 ** _Author Note:_** Sorry about this chapter being so tiny. I'm seriously ashamed of this, but interludes just always kick my butt. I wanted to add a third one here, from Taylor's POV, but I spent hours and hours agonizing over it and it _just wouldn't work,_ so in the end, I just posted what I had so I could go back to Greg.

I'm sorry for the combination of tardiness and brevity. But sometimes, interludes just need to happen.


	8. 1-6

1.6

I walked out of my house like nothing was wrong, meandering down the street towards the more densely populated parts of the city. Once I was in an area that was both well developed and less populated, I made my usual scan of the surroundings, ducked into an alleyway, and came out the other side as Terrarian.

I briefly wondered what they were saying about me on PHO? Perhaps xX_VoidCowboy_Xx should make a reappearance. They probably missed my analyses I used to post. I probably had a thread! I faintly recognized that it was odd how that gave me a bigger rush than meeting Miss Militia or Armsmaster, but to heck with it! There were probably threads on PHO _dedicated_ to me! Muahahaha, I have the power!

Now, for my further preparations. I had gotten a few vials of a new potion I hadn't seen before in one of the chests I found in the jungle. 'Hunter Potion' is what Trent called it, and apparently it helped the user find prey and enemies. I wondered how that worked? Shrugging to myself, I brought the vial up to my vine-covered face, noting with interest that my new Jungle Armor responded to my will in small ways, such as the opening over my mouth that appeared just before I drank the potion.

The vial vanished after I finished drinking, which was as strange as always, but I had grown used to it. Various… colors flowed into my vision, and I had to blink a couple times to try and sort it out. After a moment, I noticed that it wasn't coloring my _sight_ , per se, but some sort of strange new sense that had shown up, similar to the Radar I had found. I could now sense all the people around me, through walls and other objects, as highlighted silhouettes. The Hunter sense and my Radar sense mingled agreeably, with my Radar sense altering the 'color' of the silhouettes according to their threat level. This was super handy!

I took to the roofs, taking off at my usual speed. I quickly came across several crimes on the streets, and intervened. My street efficiency had skyrocketed with the addition of the Hunter potion, and I was now fully capable of fighting off people behind me without even turning my head. I probably looked pretty unnerving, swinging around my iron sword to hit people with the flat of the blade without looking at them.

My iron blade. I sighed, wishing that I could use my new "Blade of Grass". The problem was, there wasn't really a non-lethal setting to it. My iron sword was simple, blunt on some sides, sharp on others, and I could just hit people with the flat parts. Sure, it broke bones, but it didn't sever limbs. My Grass Blade, however… it was covered in extremely sharp plant matter, no single spot of the sword had a flat or blunt edge for attacking. Also, it frequently poisoned things I hit with it. So… yeah. It's not like I _needed_ anything better than my iron sword for these gangers.

Quick calls to the police (Thank you for that burner phone, Shadow Stalker!) and I was on my way. Let's see if the Undersiders weren't out and about tonight, though I was beginning to lose hope that I would ever to get to bring them to justice.

...I guess that saying "This can't possibly get any worse," isn't the only way to tempt fate, because I just saw some big black dogs carrying people that all show up as 'Enemies' crossing the city in the direction of the docks.

Moments later, I'm dashing across the rooftops towards them. The blonde girl in a purple bodysuit, Tattletale probably, her head whips around and she quickly says something to one of the others, a guy in a motorcycle helmet, whose name I can't quite remember. Black smoke billowed out from him, encompassing me…

I was momentarily disoriented, as the world faded away, sound dampened, and smells vanished. I quickly checked my status, to see if I could get some more information on this.

 _Blinded - Area Effect_

Deafened - Area Effect

However, after I overcame the discomfort, I was in… pretty much no way impeded whatsoever.

Because I could still see their silhouettes through the effects of the Hunter Potion combined with my Radar. I leaped forward, surprising the man in the motorcycle helmet by knocking him off the dog with the flat of my sword. Upon impact, the black clouds dissipated. I heard the girl other than Tattletale shout something. Hellhound, I think. Immediately, the beasts ceased running away, and snarled at me. Tattletale and the other guy, someone in a poofy renaissance shirt with a sceptre, rolled off their dogs. Now unencumbered, the animals jumped at me, mouths agape.

So I broke one of the creature's jaws with the hilt of my sword, and went flying in a tangled heap from the combined force of the other two. Luckily, my jungle armor was even tougher than iron, somehow, and I barely even felt the attacks.

You know what? Screw these things. I'm using my Grass Blade. I returned my iron sword to my inventory, pulling out my new sword. Upon seeing it, I noticed that Tattletale froze up, before shouting to her dog-wielding teammate. Whatever she was saying, though, it was falling on deaf ears, as Hellhound was simply screaming at me in rage, pausing only to command her dogs.

I pushed one of them off of me, and slashed at the other. The one whose jaw I had broken was lying on its side in pain. My slash dug deep into Hellhound's mount, heavily injuring its leg. For a moment, Hellhound's shouts were buried under her dog's howling, before the animal's cries shrank down into whimpering. Hellhound herself jumped off her dog and rushed me.

Really? Your monster dogs can't really hurt me, and you're gonna try to engage me in hand to hand? Are you stupid? I laid her out with a solid punch to the cheek, unequipping the Blade of Grass. Now that there's only one dog up and about, I should probably try to decrease my lethality.

Speaking of which… I turn and grab the last dog by its head. It began to thrash violently, attempting to bite my hands. Under my armor, I grin. I've always wanted to try this! I smash my forehead into the dog's face. It gives off a startled bark, but is otherwise fairly unaffected.

I frown. Damn the movies! Instead, I release the right side of its head from my grip, and leverage several punches into it's face until it stops making noises. I turn to the other Undersiders, who went quiet during the combat exchange. I drop the last dog.

I give a wicked grin. "So. You guys are the Undersiders."

OoOoO  
Mini-Interlude: Tattletale (Minterlude?)

When Terrarian crested a nearby roof with a jump, I immediately turned my power on him, trying to see what information I could pull before we led him to the gang fight in the docks.

 _New armor, made of plants. Stronger than previous armor. Made armor personally. Very enhanced physical prowess. Capable of jumping 12-15 feet vertically from a standing position. Capable of moving at speeds up to 38 miles per hour without rest. Doesn't need rest. Doesn't sleep? Still sleeps. Doesn't sleep._

She shook her head. What? Her power never gave her conflicting information, not unless she was missing a huge piece to a puzzle. What was she missing here?

She turned to Grue. "Alright, we should start moving all out, there he is. Mask us for a moment? We need to get a head start." He nodded, shouting the order to Rachel. Then, he coated the roof that Terrarian was leaping onto with shadows.

We began to get moving when Grue seized up. "What? How is he-" Suddenly, Terrarian comes rocketing out of the darkness, hitting Grue off the dog with a loud, meaty smack. The darkness vanishes as Grue comes to a rolling stop, groaning.

 _Largely unaffected by Grue's shadows. Enhanced senses. Not using standard senses. Using a sense optimized for seeing through obstacles and terrain._

I paled. What on earth? How many powers did this guy have? I signal Regent to begin messing with Terrarian however he can. He nods, raising his staff, and making a gesture at Terrarian. Nothing happened. Regent tried again, and again, seeming to grow panicked. Meanwhile, Terrarian was engaging Rachel's dogs.

Immune to body control. Body is in a breaker state. Breaker state separates body slightly from this dimension. Body is a projection.

Wait, what? Which was it? My worry increased as Terrarian, having just broken one of the dog's jaws, wrestled with the other two, Rachel directing the assault. Then Terrarian brought out a giant sword that looked like it was made of plants. My power went haywire.

 _Stores weapons in another dimension. Other dimension doesn't adhere fully to the physics of this dimension. Sword is made of poisonous plants. Plants still alive. High likelihood of death from poison._

Terrarian slashed the sword through one of Rachel's dog's legs. The dog went down with a terrible howling, and Tattletale winced. Rachel would not take that well- Oh, he took her down too. Not with his sword, though, so she would live. The last dog was attacking Terrarian now, and… did he just headbutt it?

 _Disappointed that headbutting isn't as effective in real life as it is in the media._

That wasn't incredibly useful, power… He just punched the dog out. Okay. Quick, quick, what can her power give her to help in the upcoming conversation!

Terrarian walked towards her and Regent. "So. You guys are the Undersiders." His voice put her in mind of a smaller guy her age. She scanned the armor he was wearing more intently. Yep, the armor made him look a bit bigger than he actually was. Useful information? Maybe.

Tattletale grimaced before replying. "Yeah, that's us. Terrarian, right?" If he wasn't, then this city had way too many grab-bag capes wearing armor. Terrarian nodded, but remained quiet. "...Do you have some sort of grudge against us?" His takedowns were pretty brutal. Either he was just that violent a person, or he had something against us, personally.

He shrugged. "You could say that. A fight of yours recently put someone close to me in the hospital, and with Panacea out of town, their odds of leaving soon aren't good. I thought it was only fair if I put you guys in there for at least the same amount of time." He cracked his knuckles.

Tattletale's mind was awhirl with the newly obtained information.  
 _  
Person he is talking about was injured in our last scuffle with E88._

Person is a member of the Empire. Terrarian is not a member of the Empire. Terrarian does not agree with Empire.

Person is a relative. Sibling? No, Mother.

Person is unresponsive. Coma.

She grinned. "You can't exactly blame us for fighting members of the Empire that interrupt us while we're doing our operations. Surely you've got some sort of power hidden away that can help your mom." He went still, and she realized that she may have just made a mistake. Damn the difficulty in getting a read on him! Tattletale spoke quickly. "Look, we're just small time-" She was cut off when a large shuriken materialized in his hand. Tattletale threw herself to the ground before the weapon flew over her head and shattered upon impact with the wall.

He no longer spoke, allowing his anger to drive the remainder of the fight. In short order, Regent, Grue, and She were all on the ground next to Rachel, getting tied up with some rope he pulled out of nowhere.

Well, this night had just gone swimmingly.

OoOoO  
Greg

I called the PRT. I had done it! I had defeated all the Undersiders, and now, the PRT were going to come cart them away. All in a night's work, I thought to myself in satisfaction. While the phone rang, I admired my armor. Wow, this stuff may not look as sturdy as my metal armor generally did, but it was so much stronger than it looked.

Finally, the phone was answered. "PRT hotline, how may I help you?" A tired sounding voice came through the line.

"Hello, this is Terrarian." I stated cheerfully. "I have just captured the Undersiders, can I get a pickup van coming my way?" I told them the address.

The voice on the other end of the phone sighed again. "We'll see what we can do, but pretty much the whole Protectorate team and most of the vans we can spare are at the Docks right now. Lung and Kaiser are duking it out." My eyebrows raised, and I looked in that direction. Wow, that's a lot of fire. I guess that I got a bit too caught up in my fight with the Undersiders.

I hesitated. On the one hand, if I waited here, I could make sure the Undersiders stayed contained until a van was free to retrieve them, on the other…

I could help the Protectorate stop the fight between the gangs, an arguably much more important goal than the capture of a group of 'small timers'. Groaning, I made my choice. I began leaping away, towards the Docks.

OoOoO

I arrived in time to see Lung, already more than ten feet tall, covered in scales, and emitting blasts of fire every few seconds at the gigantic duo battling him with spears that were even taller than him. Though they were striking with precision, Lung was both fast and skilled enough to maneuver himself so that even if he took damage from their weapons, his regeneration would quickly outpace it and he would end up even stronger.

I leaped over to where I saw Miss Militia covering Dauntless, who was attempting to fend off Hookwolf, with sniper fire. She glanced over to me as I landed, moving her gun to face me, and I realized that she might not recognize me.

"Easy, it's me, Terrarian!" I blurted out. She hesitated momentarily, before swinging her gun back over to the duel. "Um, where should I pitch in?" I was a little bit lost. This was a larger fight than any I had gotten into up till now, as apparently, even the Undersiders were little better than unpowered gangsters when it came to fighting me.

My question was answered when a large piece of debris crashed into the scene, flying over some nearby buildings and narrowly missing Dauntless. Miss Militia cursed, before relaying her information to me. "It's Rune, and we don't have any fliers on hand to match her. Quickly, can you call her presence in? We need some members of New Wave if they're available."

I was about to nod my head, but then I stopped. I scanned the air until I saw her. A girl, probably close to my age, in a red and black robe, standing on a large section of concrete that was floating in the sky. Surrounding her were similarly sized objects, including a few more sections of what were presumably buildings and a pair of dumpsters. "No need, Miss Militia, I'll take her."

As soon as I had my bearings, I activated my grappling hook, flying up into the air towards Rune, having attached myself to one of her dumpsters. Apparently, in the night sky, she didn't even notice my approach. I guess that I just didn't weigh enough to make a meaningful increase on a dumpster? Branching off the Ivy Whip, I connected myself to two more of the flying objects, weaving in between her artillery. Rune herself was scanning the ground below, probably for places she could send her payload without hurting one of her teammates. She rose one of her hands, presumably to use her power and send another of her debris down to the battlefield, when I got up close.

She noticed me moments before I got close, apparently, as she turned her head and I heard a startled squawk. It was cut short, however, when I swung the flat of my sword at her. She made a pained sound and stumbled back on her mount. Whoah, was she barely phased by that? She hadn't spontaneously grown a Brute rating while I had been off PHO, had she?

The obvious answer came to me moments later. Of course, she was using her telekinesis on her robes, to keep them more durable than they should be. Oh well.

In any case, I now had to worry about all the objects around me, as she attempted to orchestrate them into bludgeoning me. Luckily, my danger sense apparently counted the things as extensions of Rune while her power was in them, and it was easy enough for me to send off branches of the Ivy whip to objects that weren't rushing towards me as I tried to line myself up for another shot at Rune.

But then her own section began to float away. Quickly, I had one of the branching arms grab onto her platform, and paid for my momentary inattention with a dumpster colliding with my torso. Groaning as a full quarter of my health drained away from that single attack, I knew that I couldn't take many more of those. I immediately drew myself over to her platform, holding myself against it with my grappling hook. Rune, alarmed, apparently tried to take flight with her Robes, but I put a stop to that by striking her in the head this time.

I realized this had probably been a bad idea when the various items she had taken began to fall out of the sky around me, as well as Rune herself dropping like a puppet with cut strings.

Eyes widening, I made the snap decision that I should probably avoid killing people, even if they were Nazi supervillains. The fact that said villain was a teenage girl would probably hurt me in the future.

Whipping my Ivy Whip past Rune's falling form, I accelerated to her, wrapping my arms around her mid-flight. I rolled in the air until I was beneath her, cushioning her fall with myself. Damnit, this was going to hurt so, so badly, though I had fallen from similar heights before. I consumed one of my health potions directly from my inventory as the fall seemed to stretch on, watching the cold, unforgiving earth approach. This had been a terrible, bad idea.

Then I felt the earth beneath me. I blinked, checking my status in disbelief. No damage? How? That didn't make sense! I was startled out of my confusion when a piece of concrete the size of a car hit the ground nearby, and I rolled myself on top of Rune to shield her from the shower of concrete chunks as the segment shattered. All around us, similar pieces of debris collided with the street, and a dumpster smashed a parked car. I winced, hoping that since Rune had been the one to actually _use_ the damn things, the blame for this would fall on her.

She groaned underneath me, and I blanched, jumping off of her. Whew, that had been a compromising position, glad nobody was watching.

Which of course, was when Miss Militia ran up to me. "You- you idiot! That was insanely dangerous! Are you alright? You fell from at least seventy feet up!" I checked myself, noting my still full health bar. Apparently, I hadn't needed to use that health potion.

"Um, I'm fine. Rune, uh, probably isn't." I was glad that my armor hid my blush.

Dauntless walked up to us, holding one of his arms in a manner that made it quite obvious that it was broken, and Armsmaster picked through the trashed remains of one of the nearby warehouses. Dauntless sighed, before speaking up. "Hookwolf got away, and Crusader used his ghosts to help Fenja and Menja bolt. Lung hurt Menja pretty badly, but Fenja managed to toss him into the Bay before they fled. That warehouse that he tore up belonged to the Dockworkers Association." He sighed again. "Yet again, the gang fights managed to hurt Brockton Bay's workforce, as though the economy wasn't bad enough."

Miss Militia groaned tiredly. "Alright. Terrarian, thank you for bringing down Rune. We'll take her from here. Would you mind coming in sometime tomorrow to give a statement on this fight?" I nodded, and Miss Militia picked up Rune before the two heroes moved towards their teammate, who was still scanning the wrecked warehouse.

I returned to the rooftop I had left the Undersiders and was disappointed, but not surprised, to discover that they weren't there. Sighing, I resolved that I would just have to take them out again sometime. In spite of the fact that I couldn't get tired, I decided to relax a bit by going back to Terraria. I took advantage of my new magic mirror to teleport directly into my bedroom, bypassing the slight risk that ever existed with people following me after a fight to discover where I lived.

I spent the next few hours carefully constructing four more generic huts like the one that Trent lived in. Finally, sometime soon, I would start getting merchants to show up, and I would be able to spend some of the heaps of cash I had made off of monsters on useful stuff.

After returning to the waking world, I went downstairs and turned on the news, hoping to find out what was being said about the big fight that had happened the previous night.

However, the line of text scrolling at the bottom of the report caused my heart to constrict in sadness for one of the few people that I considered to be, if not a friend, then friendly.

 _"Head of the Dockworkers Union, Danny Hebert, found dead at the scene of Lung's rampage last night by the hero Armsmaster…"_

OoOoO

 _Author Note:_ Even when she's not the main character, being Taylor Hebert is suffering.


	9. 1-7

1.7

I returned to Terraria after eating my breakfast. Let's see, I had some time until the PRT wanted me to come in for a statement, they wanted me to come in at 4:00 this afternoon, which meant I had a good nine hours to myself. Whatever was I to do? Prepare myself.

Laying myself down in my bed, I placed an alarm clock next to me, setting it to ring at 3:00. When I was in Terraria, I still heard faint echoes of the things my body heard here, as well as felt phantom pressures of anything touching my real body. I was glad of this, as it meant that I wasn't just dead to the world or comatose while I was here. That would have been a big problem.

I left Trent's shack, glancing around at the makeshift village that I had spent my time last night after coming home from the gang fight building. It was pretty shabby, all the little wooden cottages were hardly the best I could do at this point, but if all the houses were slightly different, it would bother me.

Was slight OCD just another of the mental changes I had undergone since getting my powers, or had I always been like that? Well, it could be worse. I'd heard of a cape up in Boston whose powers gave him a mental disorder so compelling that he would murder people who made any errors in his presence.

Night was falling here. Time didn't always match up perfectly with the real world, here. It definitely didn't match up so that I would always return here at the moment I had left, as plants would have grown up and it would be a different time of day. Of course, plants here seemed to sprout out of nowhere constantly. Suddenly, I heard a muffled bang in one of the houses. Had a merchant already set up shop here?

I walked cautiously over to the house, knocking on the door. "Um, hello? It's me, Greg, the, uh, the Terrarian."

A voice inside muttered something, before speaking up. "Come in!" I walked in to see a man in a trenchcoat, red shirt, and jeans. He seemed to be working on something before I walked in. As I approached, he held out a hand, which I shook. "Hello there. I'm Dante, the Arms Dealer. I'm the source of all your firearms related needs. So, what can I do for you?"

Well, this was a pleasant surprise! I had been wondering where I could get more ammo for my gun. Trent called it the Boomstick, and the name was fitting enough that I went along. "Do you sell ammo for the Boomstick? I already used up all the bullets that it came with."

Dante nodded. "Sure do, how many musket balls you need?" Musket balls? I didn't exactly know a lot about guns, but weren't musket balls exclusive to, well, muskets? I hesitated to bring this up, though, because things here were a lot more compatible. Heck, hadn't I made Shadow Stalker arrows for her crossbow? Crossbow bolts and arrows were usually different things, weren't they?

I examined my inventory, specifically, the ammo section. It held some arrows, though I didn't use a bow. Four slots for ammo, which apparently capped at 999. Mentally shrugging, I answered him. "How about 3996?" It would have seemed like an odd or random number to anyone on Earth, but here? 999 was a pretty basic number.

He nodded, visibly more happy than before. "Right-o, that'll be 2 gold, 79 silver, and 72 copper." I handed over the sum, glad to finally have something to _spend_ the damn cash on. I had already racked up 9 gold, and I had begun to wonder what it was even for, other than dropping when I died. Before the merchant system had been explained to me by Trent, I had thought it was all part of a point or scoring system. Once he explained it all to me, I had started keeping it in a chest at home. I had simply forgotten to put the cash I had on hand from my visit to the jungle into the chest, which saved me a short trip back to Trent's shack now.

I glanced over at the table in the room, where a partially assembled gun lay on the table. It looked… menacing, even in its unfinished state. "What are you working on there?" I asked curiously.

Dante grinned. "That? That, my friend, is the Minishark. When it's done, it'll be capable of pumping out at least ten rounds of fire per second. It should be ready in a few days, but it'll cost ya a pretty penny if you want it." His smile was cheeky, but mine was predatory. A machine gun? _Do want._

Still grinning, I replied. "Just tell me when it's finished, I'll be saving up." We shook hands again, and I exited the hut to the sounds of Dante humming along as he resumed work on the gun. Shaking my head of the notion that my Boomstick just didn't seem quite as awesome in the face of the idea of a machine, I walked towards the jungle. Time to finish up the Chakram, and in order to do that, I needed some more spores and stingers.

Whistling all the while, I crossed the landscape in the direction of the jungle hut, where I needed to replace the missing bed.

OoOoO

Down in the jungle, having collected half a dozen stingers from the relentless forces of the insectoid jungle denizens, I tunneled further down, hoping to find more jungle spores. I had discovered a strange crystal that was shaped like a heart. Not a _real_ heart, either, one of those valentine's ones. Seemed odd, to me, as the shape of a real heart was a more plausible geological formation, but whatever. This world was weird. I had picked up the rock, and felt strangely… good, while the thing seemed to _pulse_ in my hands, until it suddenly vanished. Since then, I had felt _really_ healthy. Like, better than normal. There wasn't much to compare it to, seeing as pain didn't last anymore, and even missing limbs were more _annoying_ than painful, but that was the only real way I could explain it. I felt better, now. Sure hope I can find more of those things!

Another half hour later, and I was almost finished finding the jungle spores I would need for the Chakram. The Ivy Whip had proven itself my most useful item having pulled me across chasms and up the walls towards a few of the more… out of the way spores.

Then, I found another of those weird little shrine things, with the glowing green torches. Yes! The last one of those I opened had an awesome gun inside, what would I find in these ones? I pulled myself over to the shrine eagerly, opening the chest to view its glorious treasure. Let's see, some cash, a few more gold ingots, some more of that purple potion, and…

Another pair of shoes! Not the Hermes Boots, this time, but a weird pair of purple ones with leaves growing out of the mouths of the shoes. What on earth would this do? My confusion at the fact that I could wear multiple shoes at once notwithstanding, I swapped out my Shackle that I had gotten off the Zombies for this new accessory. Seeing as the Shackle's armor bonus was, at this point, negligible, hopefully, whatever these things did was better!

Getting up from my knees, I took the now empty chest and placed it in my inventory, before taking an experimental sprint circling the chamber. I didn't feel faster, but would I if I were? I think I would, seeing as I definitely noticed sprinting a great deal faster after getting the Hermes' Boots. Alright then, if not speed, then what did these shoes do? I walked out of the shrine, and instantly felt… something at my feet, pushing to escape the dirt. I jumped to the side, wondering if I had just felt some creature trying to attack me from below, only to see that flowers had burst out of the ground where I had stepped.

...What?

OoOoO

I teleported back up and into my jungle safe house, stretching a little, when it hit me. Some sort of… feeling, that I was being watched. It wasn't quite like my Radar sense, not in the way that I could tell that someone was looking at me with ill intent, but just in a general… 'Eyes are watching me' sense. The hair on my neck began standing up, so I quickly brought my bed into my inventory before teleporting back to Trent's shack.

That sense of being watched didn't leave me while I packed away all the things I had found in the jungle that I hadn't equipped in chests, nor did it leave me while I set to work making myself the Chakram. Once I had my thorny discus, I ran out of Trent's shack in a frenzy, dashing away from the village to the top of a nearby hill. Once I made it to the top, I looked around. Here in the open, would I see whatever it was that was watching me? I looked all over the horizon, when suddenly, a demon eye appeared on my Radar sense.

Not in the way they normally did, either, entering from the edges of the sense from wherever they came from, but simply… materializing into being within the sense. I swung my Grass Blade absently through it, eyes not leaving the distance as I slowly spun my head around, trying to pinpoint where the gaze was coming from. When another demon eye appeared, I furrowed my eyebrows. Where were they coming from? I glanced up at the new demon eye as I killed it, and paled.

...There was a demon eye the size of a house floating in the air above me. It stared at me, and I instantly knew that this was the creature that had been watching me for the past little while. As I watched, a third demon eye seemed to swim up from the depths of the monster's pupil, the surface of the eye rippling like water as the creature burst through, immediately diving towards me. Instead of holding to my Sword in the face of this fight, I pulled out the Boomstick.

Whatever this thing was, it wasn't showing up on my Radar sense, and that scared me. I had grown used to depending on that to save my life, and the idea that the _most dangerous kinds_ of creatures didn't even register on it terrified me.

It had to die.

OoOoO

A short while later, I began to regret not fleeing back into the real world the instant I laid my eyes on the, well, eye.

I had been shooting it with the Boomstick for a good while now, dodging out of the way as it alternated between spitting demon eyes at me and ramming itself into the earth in attempts to flatten me.

When all of a sudden, the eye twisted, contorting itself in horrifying ways before it suddenly shed the iris and pupil altogether, revealing rows upon rows of sharp teeth, leading into a gaping maw.

I'll admit to screaming a great deal at this point.

The rest of the fight was three times as nerve-wracking as the first, as I used my Ivy Whip to desperately pull myself out of the way of the rampaging Eye-mouth, shooting at it all throughout, while screaming my head off.

Even so, it managed to take a good few bites out of me. I almost thought I was dead as it seemed to just gain in speed more and more, until all of a sudden, I killed it. Upon so doing, I collapsed. I may not have been able to get tired physically any more, but the sheer amount of terror I had just experienced meant that I needed some time to recollect myself.

Which, of course, the zombies in the night didn't want to give me. I glared at the approaching corpses, before shooting at them until they dropped. Okay, I guess I wasn't going to be getting any respite as long as I stood out here. I stood back up, dusting myself off, before walking over to the place where the giant eye thing's body had fallen.

There, I found a pile of strange, glowing purple ore, three odd purple seeds, a stack of evil looking arrows, some health potions, and a bag. I collected the items, and opened the bag to find something that caused my breath to hitch.

A shield, looking almost exactly like the creature I had just killed, with a gaping mouth full of sharp teeth. It seemed to be an accessory of some kind. Hesitant to put on something that looked so horrific, I debated internally. Finally, reasoning that since the creature that had dropped it had been so powerful, the item itself must be pretty amazing, I swapped out my Climbing Claws for it, seeing as my Ivy Whip made those obsolete anyways.

Thus equipped, I held the shield on my arm. It didn't have a strap or anything, it just… held onto my arm. Kinda creepy. I could already tell that it must have a defense bonus, though it wasn't that large. Surely this thing did something more, it was barely better than the shackle for heaven's sake! I began to walk back and forth, looking around for a zombie. Hopefully, I could test it out in combat, like when I learned how to use the Ivy Whip.

Finding my target, I moved to jump towards it, holding the shield up defensively, hoping that maybe the shield would reflect attacks or something.

Instead, I found myself approaching the zombie at an incredible speed, and suddenly, the undead creature flew apart in a rain of flesh as I bounced off of it at an incredibly high speed. Blinking, I glanced around. I had moved about a dozen feet in a split second, colliding with the zombie and killing it instantly. I looked back down at the shield on my arm and smiled, before causing it to vanish from sight. I tested it a bit more, practically teleporting around the forest, the shield appearing just long enough for me to smash into something, before vanishing once more.

Once more, I was grateful for the fact that all of my accessories could provide their benefits from wherever it was I kept them when I turned them invisible.

I teleported back to Trent's hut, stowing the cash, arrows, purple ore, and strange seeds before returning to the real world. I checked the alarm clock, to find that it was about noon. In four hours, I had to meet with the PRT, but until then, I was going to just lie here, no fighting, no working, just… rest, since I couldn't actually sleep. Maybe listen to some music.

OoOoO

Three hours later, I could be found running over the rooftops once again, except now I was using the shield's super speed thing to pretty much teleport over the occasional gap. I learned that I couldn't keep it up constantly, there was a short cooldown, a little over a second long. But other than that? I could do it quite frequently.

Before long, I dropped down onto the street a block away from the PRT building, walking the rest of the way. People in the streets paused what they were doing to stare, and I saw a couple people with their phones out, taking pictures. I kept my back straight, chest puffed out. That's right people, I'm a hero. I felt pretty good right now. I would be feeling even better if I had managed to keep ahold of the Undersiders and put them in jail, but I could wait. I'd find them again later.

I walked through the automatic doors, striding up to the front desk, studiously ignoring the whispering tourists around me. Once I was there, the attendant spoke to me. "Terrarian, right? If you'll follow Officer Reid here, he'll bring you to the meeting room where you can give your statement, a member of the Protectorate will be with you in a few minutes." I nodded, and walked after the indicated officer. A minute later, I was sitting in a chair across from an empty desk. I glanced around the room, which was pretty much featureless. This was obviously not someone's office, or at least not the office of anyone who spent much time here at all.

After a short time passed, Miss Militia walked into the room. Unseen under my armor, I adopted a confused expression. Was Miss Militia my designated contact from the Protectorate or something? Whatever, maybe she was just the public face in general. I knew that the media loved talking about how patriotic she was at any given opportunity, at least.

She smiled at me, or at least, she probably did, from what I could tell of her face from under her flag bandana, and spoke cheerfully. "Alright Terrarian, would you mind going over your fight with Rune last night?"

I recounted the duel, leaving out the awkwardness immediately following it. Somehow, I didn't feel like they needed, or wanted, to hear that. All the same, Miss Militia's (probably) grinning face made me think that she had seen a little more of that exchange than I was comfortable with.

After my explanation, during which she took various notes on the paper in front of her, she gathered up the papers and placed them into a briefcase. Then, she turned back to me. "Thanks for coming in and speaking with us. I realize that you were probably tired from the ordeal last night, but it's necessary to document things after a battle."

I nodded amicably. "It's fine, I don't actually need to sleep anymore." She seemed surprised at that.

"Truly? That's yet another thing that we have in common, then. If you keep drawing parallels like that, people are going to think you're my son." She laughed at that, and I tried to respond in kind, but that statement tugged on the hurt in my heart for my mom, who was still hospitalized. Miss Militia seemed to note the slight change in atmosphere, and changed the subject.

"So, uh, your outfit changed once again. Are those… plants? Why switch over from the armor?" She asked. They didn't seem like particularly pointed questions, just curiosity.

"Well, this suit of vines is actually stronger than the iron armor was. Plus, I have a few more little things that I made out of plants to complete the ensemble. Like those vine things you saw me using to fight Rune last night." I replied.

Miss Militia seemed interested. "You made armor from plants that's stronger than iron? Interesting! I don't mean to pry, however, I was just wondering why you changed costumes again."

I waved her concerns away. "It's fine. Part of my power lets me make increasingly effective armor from different materials on an… irregular basis. I'll be using this set for a little bit, anywhere from a few more nights to a few weeks, and then I'll have something better. So… yeah. If you guys run into a random guy wearing a weird set of armor, it's probably going to be me. Alright?" She nodded, and we talked for a few more minutes before I excused myself, leaving the PRT building to a similar state of interest from passersby as when I entered.

Soon after, I moved to a nearby roof, dashed off to a deserted location, and teleported home. I sighed, unequipping all my armor. Time to visit my mom in the hospital again. I sure hope she gets better soon...

OoOoO

 ** _Author Note:_** I hope the boss fight was okay, and that you all enjoyed the bits of progression and the meeting with Miss Militia! I'm a bit upset, though, as tomorrow might be another interlude. Gah... hopefully, it'll be more enjoyable to write than the last few.


	10. 1-8

1.8

After several hours of waiting by his mother's hospital bed, Greg walked out of the hospital once more. When he watched her sleeping away the days, he felt cold inside. Did she have brain damage? Panacea couldn't heal brain damage, that was something most people in Brockton Bay knew, and that was why it was the most feared form of injury. All he could do is hope that her injuries were just physical trauma.

He walked down the evening streets of Brockton Bay to the bus stop. He could just teleport home, of course, but for the moment, he wanted to just sit on the bus and try to not think of anything at all, not training, not his mom's situation, nothing.

He had beaten the Undersiders. True, they hadn't been arrested. Somehow, they had gotten out of their bindings and made away. He suspected they had received help from some unknown third party, unless they had recruited a fifth member he hadn't known about.

Still, while utterly curb stomping them had felt good at the time, now he just felt… hollow. I had trash-talked to them about putting them in the hospital, but honestly, the worst I had done is break Grue's jaw. Maybe given Hellhound a concussion. I might have killed one of her dogs, as well. I kinda regretted that now, but I simply attacked monstrous creatures like those on instinct now, generally with lethal force.

Getting off the bus stop near my house, I wandered in the general direction of my house. It was getting pretty dark out now. I passed by a small group of Empire gangers, but that wasn't unusual in this part of town. It was a little more strange that some of them nodded to me as they passed, but I could dismiss that on the basis that I was a blonde kid with blue eyes.

I entered my house and moved to my room, where I collapsed onto my bed and closed my eyes.

OoOoO

Trent had an announcement for me when I arrived.

"Greg, wonderful news! The Dryad has moved into the village!" Trent seemed a little bit more excited than normal. Was the Dryad an extremely useful merchant?

"What does she sell?" I asked, curious.

He waved his hand animatedly. "Mostly seeds, a few other odds and ends, but the important thing she sells is Purification Powder, which you can use to purge corruption from locations." He paused to take a breath. "Which means that you can loot shadow orbs from the corruption, which are a huge milestone for your development!"

Have I mentioned that nothing makes Trent happier than seeing me getting stronger? It's nice to have a friend so invested in my progression, but it's a little weird at the same time.

I backed away from him a little, raising my hands in a placating gesture. "Alright, I'll get going right away, Trent. See you." I quickly made my exit from the hut, and glanced around, hoping to see some indicator of which building the Dryad had made her home in.

...Like a hurricane of leaves circling her house. At least, I assumed it was hers, otherwise, the weather is being extremely odd today. I approached the hut cautiously, but the leaves fail to take notice as I pass through them. I moved up to the front door and knocked. After a moment, the leaf hurricane died down, and the door opened, allowing me to see… _her._

A vision of ultimate beauty stood in the entryway. Green hair that seemed to shimmer, emerald eyes, and a well-proportioned body scantily clad in plants. She looked close to me in age, too. The glamorous woman looked at me a moment, before asking me a question in a quiet voice.

"Yes? How can I help you?" I opened and closed my mouth a few times, thankfully hidden under my vine mask, before managing to say two words.

"Purification Powder?"

...Smooth, Greg Veder. Smooth.

Her eyes lit up and she took a step forward and grabbed my hands. "You want to purify the Corruption? Wonderful! Each bag of Purification Powder costs 75 copper each." I managed to stumble through the rest of our conversation and walked away from her hut with a few dozen bags of Purification Powder. I returned to Trent's hut, where I decided to see what I could make with the ore I had gotten from the giant eye.

Hmm, a battle-axe that doubles as a woodcutting axe, and a giant hammer. Neat. I'm pretty sure that my Blade of Grass is better, though.

I began the trek towards the purple mountain I had spotted on my trip to the jungle before.

OoOoO

...What a horrific place. I swung my sword over my head to dice up the abomination that fell from the sky towards me. Occasionally, one of these things would drop a piece of flesh that would fly into my inventory. Whenever that happened, I would cringe mentally at the thought that at some point, I would have to reach in there and take them out.

I hiked over the last rise of the mountain, keeping a careful eye on the sky for more of the horrors. The worst thing about them is their silence. Without wings, they didn't make the sounds of flapping as they fell towards me, and though their gaping maws were eternally open, as though screaming endlessly, they remained silent in their descent.

I spotted a pit in the murky purple stone in the ground, and approached the edge cautiously. Glancing down, my heart sank as I realized the hole went… much deeper than I thought, to the point that the bottom couldn't even be seen through the darkness within.

Suddenly, my Radar sense spiked, and I dodged to the side, whipping out my sword as I moved. The blade collided with the largest monster I had seen yet, cutting the creature clean in two. Checking my surroundings once more, I cursed, before bringing out a glowstick and tossing it into the pit, which I then descended into myself.

The bottom of the crevice was even more nightmarish than the surface of this place, and I ended up killing dozens more of the monsters while I explored the caves. I also discovered another heart crystal, which I absorbed.

After wandering around the cavern for a bit, I decided to look for the objects that Trent had described to me, the "Shadow Orbs". I could find them by casting Purification Powder onto the purple stone floor of the caverns, and tunneling through the newly created ordinary rock. After a few false tunnels, I finally found a strange sphere, suspended in mid air in a chamber I had found under the cavern. A chill ran down my spine as I smashed it open, but inside I found… another sphere, but this time it flew into my inventory. Examining it, I activated the item.

Whoah, light! This thing summons another of the spheres, but this one glows a bit brighter than the others. Damn, it's really bright, I begin to walk away from it, trying to get my vision back. Just as I start moving, the sphere floats away from me, bringing the light level back to a manageable brightness. Wait, is this thing being controlled by me?

I focused on the sphere, and thought about it moving to the right. It hovered in that direction.

Neat, I can control this thing with my mind! I won't need to carry around torches anymore! I wonder what other things I can get out of those orbs? Grinning to myself, I set to work.

OoOoO

I lay on the floor of Trent's shack, angry at myself. It had been quite some time since I had last died, and being reminded that there were still tons of things in Terraria that could kill me with ease wasn't a nice experience. After a little bit more time moping, I got up. Dying wasn't any fun, but…

I'd live.

Trent looked over to me as I spoke. "Hey, Trent, do you know what killed me? I was opening those shadow orb things you told me about, when an earthquake or something happened. Then something crushed me."

Trent made an "Ah!" sound of realization. "You must have summoned the Eater of Worlds. I meant to tell you that every third Shadow Orb you break summons him. Sorry." He really did look contrite, and in the end, there wasn't any real harm done.

But first, let's back up a moment here. "Wait, what? Eater of WORLDS? Is that name like, did he eat a world? What? Is he still out there? Did I accidentally doom the planet? What?" I was panicking a bit, here, but I felt that I was justified in so doing.

Trent waved away my concerns. "No, no, after you died he retreated back to… wherever the hell they wait. There are tons of them. Thousands, probably. They're the source of Corruption, I think. They tend to live near the center of the planet, but they come up whenever someone breaks too many Shadow Orbs. You can summon them in another way, as well, if you want to farm them for treasure."

That made me feel a little better, though I was also slightly horrified at the thought of summoning more of those things, and the knowledge that they were basically Behemoths didn't help. "Okay, on that horrific note, I think I'm going to look in other places for a boost. Do you have any other ideas on ways that I can make some progress?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I noticed that you had some Gravitation Potions. You should go looking for Sky Islands, they have little houses on them with treasure inside. You just have to watch out for Harpies, that's all."

I blinked. "Sky Islands? Like, flying islands? That-That's a thing?" I knew that this place ignored a lot of the more conventional rules of physics, but… flying islands? That took the cake. Wow, this whole conversation had been one surprising revelation after another.

Trent simply smiled. "Indeed it is. Generally, Sky Islands tend to form over other special biomes, like the Jungle or Corruptions, sometimes over the Dungeon. You should check the skies over places like that." Having said his piece, he handed me the Gravitation potions and shooed me out the door.

I stood there for a minute, eying the potion warily. What exactly would this do? After a short bout of indecision, I finally shrugged and chugged one. A few seconds passed, as I wondered what was supposed to happen. Was I supposed to fly away? I thought really hard about flying, and jumped. I landed back on the ground.

Furrowing my eyebrows in irritation, I tried a few other ideas. Suddenly, I began to rise at an incredible pace. Turning over and spinning in the air while screaming, suddenly, I was falling back towards the ground.

OoOoO

It took a lot of close calls and panic, but in the end, I learned how to control the potion and ended up discovering a Sky Island over the Corruption, but not the Jungle. Fighting harpies in the clouds was pretty interesting, but after an hour, it lost it's novelty and became annoying. Once I found the island, I quickly made my way into the ornate house made of blue and gold bricks, to find a treasure chest.

Inside, I found the normal fare for a gold chest, plus a strange, glowing pink sword. It looked girly as all hell, but if it was powerful, I could overlook that. Now, how strong was this sword? Peeking outside the hut, he saw about a half dozen haries beating themselves against the walls of the abode. Holding the pink blade, I dashed out of the house towards one of the nearby harpies, and killed it with a swing of the blade, already focusing on the next harpy in line-

Which died in a multicolor explosion from the heavens.

I stood in shock for a moment, only drawing myself out of my stupor when another harpy darted in, shooting feathers at me. I quickly swiped once more. Another… projectile of some sort impacted the ground in front of me, and I leaped backwards to avoid the sparks it emitted. I stared at the pink sword in my hand.

...Was this thing causing _meteorites to fall from the sky?_

"Awesome." I breathed.

OoOoO

The next morning, having returned to the real world, I was sitting at the table in my dining room, eating a bowl of cereal. I had noticed that I didn't really need to eat anymore, but I tended to anyways, if only to keep the barest semblance of normality.

I was nearly finished with the bowl when someone knocked on the front door. Surprised, I swallowed my current mouthful and got to my feet. I looked down at myself, and the pajamas I still wore, but I deemed them acceptable for the task of passing a message on to whoever it was that was probably trying to get ahold of my mom.

I made my way over to the front door, and opened it to find a woman in a business suit and skirt. She smiled at me before asking a question. "Hello, would you be Gregory Veder?"

I blinked, surprised that I was the target of her visit. "Uh, yeah, that's me. Who are you?"

She held out a hand for me to shake, and I did so, slightly bewildered. "My name is Nancy Crimmons, of Child Services. I… realize that this might not be welcome news, but a recent diagnosis of your mother puts her recovery at an indeterminate time in the future. Until we know more about a potential date for her discharge, you will need to stay with a foster family."

My breathing hitched. A foster family?

OoOoO

 ** _Author Note:_** I am SO SORRY AT THE LONG DELAY, and I plan on keeping more on top of things for the foreseeable future.


	11. 2-1

2.1

My new foster parents were probably nice people. Jeremy and Penelope Horst were very kind about the situation, but I couldn't help but resent them a little. I would never choose my mother being hospitalized over my ability to move about with near absolute freedom, but it was a silver lining to the situation. Now, though? I was having the worst of both worlds. Mom's condition was apparently _worsening_ , and now I was stuck with a pair of people I didn't really know.

The following month was fairly… bland. I still attended school, though I had a bit of an unpleasant wake up call when my new group of 'friends' began making racist comments about one of my favorite teachers, Mr. Lee. After that day, I avoided eating lunch in the lunchroom, choosing instead to wander the school halls.

Taylor's group of tormentors had apparently chosen me in her place for her absence, as well. It didn't really affect me, though, as I don't think any of them knew where my locker was. They tried to insult me, but honestly? I was used to _that._ They were, admittedly, more creative than the people that generally muttered "What a creep," as I passed them. Ramping things up to groups of people insulting me to each other. I wasn't really listening, though, and none of them knew me well enough to hit me where it hurt.

I was meandering down a hallway when suddenly, someone's foot interwove with mine. I tried to stop myself, but I hadn't realized what happened in time. There was a sickening _pop_ as the ankle of whoever I had run into became dislocated, and my accidental victim tumbled to the floor.

 _"Shit!"_ Sophia Hess swore. I had stumbled a little, but now I stood more steady. My eyes widened. I held no love for Sophia, not after watching her actions towards Taylor over the past year, but I still felt bad about not watching where I was going.

"Oh, snap, sorry Sophia! Here, uh, let me help you to the nurse's office-" I reached out a hand to assist her to her feet, but she actually _snarled_ at me.

She growled out a reply. "I don't need any help from _you_ , Veder." I stepped back a little, mildly affronted. Well, fine then, you klutz. This hadn't been the first run-in I'd had with Sophia recently, in the past week or so, Sophia had stumbled into me about once a day. Seriously, I don't know how she stayed on the Track team if she was _that_ oblivious to where she was going. I mean, in _my_ defense, I had gotten a bit too used to relying on my Radar sense while I was going around. I had actually decided to take that off during school hours to try and get back my mundane situational awareness .

Pausing a moment, I returned her aggression. "Fine then," I said coolly. "Have fun getting there on your own, Hess." I turned away from her and continued my way down the hallway, passing Emma Barnes, who shot me a dirty look as she rushed by me, most likely to help her friend to the nurse. I rolled my eyes. I was just trying to be chivalrous, but some people just can't be helped.

OoOoO

That night, I received an opportunity that I hadn't had since being moved into the Horst's home. Jeremy and "Penny", as she preferred to be called, had some sort of meeting with the other Medhall representatives. Apparently, they had been chosen as my foster parents because they were coworkers of my mom, and with her still hospitalized, they probably had a slightly heavier workload. It was surprising that they had managed to 'be there for me' for the month that they had. I managed to convince them I was staying at my 'friend' Sparky's for the night.

Needless to say, I had no plans on sleeping over anywhere, much less at the house of someone who I barely knew. My real objective was to do something I hadn't had the ability to do under the watchful eyes of my foster parents.

Patrol. Terrarian hadn't been able to slip into the city as long as Greg Veder had adults in his near vicinity. I had, however, gotten quite a lot done in Terraria. I had begun constructing an arena over the Corruption, in preparation for my future rematch with the Eater of Worlds, which required me to spend an inordinate amount of time growing and chopping down trees. It was odd how trees here had a habit of sprouting up from sapling to full grown while your back was turned. I had also spent some time making excursions underground, on which I had found some more crystal hearts, as well as an accessory called a Cloud in a Bottle, which allowed me to… Double jump, basically. Uber and Leet were gonna be jealous of me when they found out. I swapped out the Flower Boots for it.

Stepping out of the house after a quick goodbye to Penny, as Jeremy had left early to get to their meeting, I walked at a leisurely pace to one of my usual spots to equip my costume. I gave my customary once over to the surrounding location, equipping my Radar sense first to double check. I had an… odd feeling, but no matter where I looked, I couldn't identify where the feeling came from. After another minute of trying to pin it down, I gave up and equipped all my gear, then leaped to the roof. After a short jog a few roofs over, I pulled out the burner phone Shadow Stalker had given me.

After a few rings, she answered. "Hello? Terrarian?" Her voice was agitated. There was a strained undertone as well. "Damnit, you want to set up a patrol with me, don't you." She sounded… resignedly angry, now.

I hesitated a moment, which she took as confirmation. She sighed, and continued, muttering. "Of course you would show back up _tonight_ of all times, ugh." Her voice sharpened. "What happened to _you_? You dropped off the radar for a goddamn _month_ before popping back up!"

I replied in a quiet voice. "I, uh… I had a family emergency." She was silent on the other end of the line for a moment.

"...Sorry to bring it up." She muttered something unintelligible, and then resumed her normal tone. "Anyways, I can't do a patrol with you tonight. I've got an injury that won't let me move much." I decided not to correct her assumption, especially since it was close enough to the truth.

I was confused. "Don't the wards generally receive treatment from Panacea? Why are you stuck at base?"

She snorted in derision. "I got the injury in my civvie identity. Apparently, when you get hurt like this in front of witnesses, you gotta let it heal at the normal pace. Which is _bullshit_. Nobody important saw me, and I could make sure they didn't talk, but _no_. Apparently it's more important than having another damn hero on the streets."

I nodded in sympathy. "Dang, sorry to hear that. This was my first chance to patrol in a while, too, and I'm not sure when I'll get another." She groaned at that.

"Damnit, I was looking forward to being able to hit a _real_ target with some backup, instead of just the normal gangers. Bah, we'll have to try and arrange something once my leg is better. Could be a few days. Damnit, this had _better_ not cost me my spot on the Track team on top of everything else…"

I wasn't sure how to respond to that, because I was pretty sure that parahumans in the Protectorate weren't supposed to participate in sports, so I just stayed quiet for that. Maybe Arcadia didn't want it to be too obvious who _weren't_ Wards because they were on a Sports team? Otherwise, it would be a pretty big piece of info for anyone hunting.

She deliberated a moment. "Alright, here's an idea. Since we can't do a tag team on somewhere big while I'm like this, you could score us both some brownie points with the higher ups. Let me tell Armsmaster that you contacted me with an offer to do another joint patrol with the Wards, then Piggot will be happy that you're a cooperative indie, and I'll get props for being a go-to gal for communication. Everybody wins."

I considered this. "Huh, yeah, that sounds good. Do you know who's patrolling tonight?" Hopefully, I could hang out with Clockblocker again.

I heard a paper rustle on the line. "Let's see, looks like Aegis and… Ugh, Vista. Sorry, you're gonna have to put up with her, she's such a little _'princess'_." I'd heard racial slurs used less offensively. "Okay, I'm off to tell Armsmaster about the plan, I'll probably be on console tonight, with this leg." Our conversation over for now, I set off to patrol on my own until I heard back from her.

OoOoO

I downed a Dangersense potion, and a short while later, now that the moon was out, I met up with Aegis and Vista in front of the PRT building. I hadn't seen as much crime as usual, only a drug dealer that I had to scare off. They were waiting for me when I arrived, and Vista jumped a little when I hit the street a few feet away from my jump off the roof.

"Gah!- Oh, it's you. Is your armor made of plants? I thought you had a suit of metal. Are you an actual Brute, or a Tinker making yourself tougher? Can you really regrow your arm?" Within a few moments of my landing, I was buried under a barrage of questions, and I stood back, astonished.

Before she could continue too much longer, Aegis put a hand on her shoulder. "Vista, give him a moment. I know you were excited to meet him, but at least let him _answer_ something!" He laughed, and I immediately found myself relaxing around him. Weird.

Vista curled in on herself slightly, apparently embarrassed, though her visor made it hard to tell. "Sorry about that, it's just, from what everyone's said you're pretty cool. Heck, even Shadow Stalker is saying nice things about you." She stated the last line in a tone of bewildered awe, making me wonder yet again how Shadow Stalker treated her teammates.

I jumped slightly, realizing they were both waiting for an answer to… one of the questions she had asked, I guess. "Um, I, I think that I have an actual Brute rating. It's not a tinker thing, at least, I'm not much of a tinker. I'm a lot stronger now than I was before I got my powers, but I'm not any more muscular or anything. I can grow back anything that gets chopped off, but it's harder to hurt me in the first place now. I'm wearing this armor because it's stronger than the metal armor, I made it myself." I stammered a little, but I tried to answer most of the questions I could remember.

Vista seemed intrigued, and was about to continue asking me questions, I think, but Aegis swooped in and saved me from more. For now, at least. He interrupted her. "Let's save any more discussion for the road, alright? Let's get this patrol going. I straightened up a little. I could understand why Aegis was the leader of the Wards, he definitely had a bit of the air of command about him.

Seeing how they got about getting into the position to patrol was interesting. Vista did this… thing, with her power, and the roof of a nearby building was suddenly in position for her to simply step up onto it, before suddenly it was back where it was supposed to be, with her in place. Aegis simply took to the air. It was easy to forget that he was a Flier, because he really didn't look aerodynamic. Shrugging my shoulders, my Ivy Whip shot out of it's hidden crevices in my armor, swinging me up onto the roof next to Vista.

"Omigosh, that is so cool!" She gushed. "You're like Doctor Octopus!"

"Oh, you read the Spiderman comics from Aleph? I love those!" I suddenly had some common ground with the girl. Or so I thought.

From the motions her head had made, I assumed she had just made a face. Dang, face-obscuring masks sure made reading expressions difficult. "Not really, but one of the past directors used to have us go over fictional heroes, and what they did that was right or wrong. That didn't last long, though, like a three-week period four years ago." With that statement, I felt a weird jolt of remembrance. It was easy to forget because of her age, but Vista had been a Ward longer than anyone else on the Brockton Bay team, and was definitely in the top ten for the country.

Still, it was slightly disappointing. "Shame, they're pretty good." I tried to avoid getting too into this part of the discussion, because I tended to do so as Greg Veder, and you never knew if you were spilling your identity because of the manner that you geeked out. Honestly, I should have avoided the subject altogether, but I doubted that I knew either of them out of costume.

The three of us chatted for a bit, while Aegis and I looked about for any crime. Him, with what was presumably Night-Vision goggles in his mask, and me with my Radar and Danger senses. We were about two hours through the patrol, and had begun heading back, when suddenly, both of my senses spiked, and I spun around.

Suddenly, standing a few feet away from us, was Oni Lee. His demon faced mask was very distinctive, and I tensed up, preparing for a fight.

"Boy." The figure stated, and I glanced over to Aegis, but I was pretty sure that Oni Lee was talking about me. He confirmed this with his next sentence. "The Dragon has a message for you." I could only assume that he meant Lung, because I doubted that the man spoke for the Canadian tinker.

He continued. "We have noticed that you base most of your activities around the Docks. Lung considers this his territory." Here, the man stepped forward menacingly, and Vista squeaked. "Either you cease your operations, or you move them elsewhere. So says Lung." The man paused for a moment, and the tension slid up another level.

"...Well?" He demanded, and I suddenly realized he was waiting for an answer.

The thing is, I wasn't really afraid of Oni Lee. If it came down to it, I was pretty sure that his knives couldn't do much to my Ivy armor, and I was quick enough with my Shield dashing that I was confident I could dodge out of the way of any grenades.

I was, however, quite afraid of Lung. Still, I wasn't about to give up on the areas around my _house._ "No can do. I'm not going to leave that area to the gangs." I blustered, hoping that this wasn't going to lead to Lung leaping out of nowhere and squishing me.

He went still. "I see." Suddenly, my senses spiked again, and I whirled, materializing my Grass Blade as I went, sending the newly appearing Oni Lee copy sprawling, before it suddenly burst into ash.

Aegis grabbed Vista and took to the air, speaking hurriedly into his comm, probably asking for backup. I continued to spin, taking down the clones as they appeared, when suddenly, the assault ceased, and I had to dash out of the way of an explosion.

Suddenly, something pinged against my armor, and I felt a flash of pain. Glancing at the silhouette of Oni Lee that my Dangersense was showing, I noted the darkened hue of a gun highlighted against the man. What? Oni Lee wasn't known to use firearms, just his knives and explosives!

Cursing, I pulled out my Boomstick, spinning to pepper new clones with bullets. Each generally managed to get off a shot before imploding into smoke and ash, but now that I knew what was coming, I managed to avoid the bulk of the shots. My main problem was that Oni Lee himself wasn't taking any damage in this exchange. He had to be keeping his main body around here, if he wasn't risking it in the fight itself.

Attempting to pay attention to both the fight and a scan of the surroundings was taxing, and the number of hits that I took spiked as I split my thought processes. A great multitasker I was not, as my shoddy aim dropped into pathetic.

Still, I found what I was looking for. Crouched on a rooftop half a block away, I could spot the shape of a man. According to my Radar, he was hostile towards me, and so I prayed it was Oni Lee as I switched my weapon out for the Starfury.

A second later, the distant rooftop exploded into color as I peppered it with meteorites. All of a sudden, the battle around me ceased. I stood warily for a moment, confirming that it wasn't just a new tactic of his, before glancing back over to the impact site.

I couldn't see Oni Lee's silhouette anymore. Maybe being unconscious meant that he wasn't a threat anymore? That didn't quite feel right, and so I jumped and pulled myself over to it with the Ivy Whip.

Oh.

Being unconscious probably wouldn't make someone invisible to my danger senses…

...But being dead definitely did.


	12. 2-2

2.2

I stared at the slightly charred corpse, not entirely sure why I wasn't more horrified. I had just killed a human being, why wasn't I freaking out here?

I mean, I killed things in Terraria all the time. Absently, even. I could be busy chopping down trees, or minnig, and when something shows up on my Radar sense, I would just pull out one of my weapons and cut it down. Was my time in Terraria desensitizing me towards the idea of death in general? Unlike me, other people didn't come back to life each time they died, and I wasn't even sure that that worked in real life. I had a horrible suspicion that it didn't, so it wasn't exactly something I wanted to test. But while Brockton Bay might have been one of the cities with the highest villainy reports in the United States, it was still less dangerous to me than Terraria was.

The closest thing to people I had killed were the undead. Zombies and skeletons might look human from a distance, but up close? They were monsters, hell bent on killing me.

...Like Oni Lee. From what I'd read on him, he had a kill count in the dozens, and he had no qualms dealing out serious injuries to civilians. Did he have a kill order? I had no idea. If he didn't, why not? What was the cut-off point for, "That guy killed too many people, off with his head!" Who even made those sorts of decisions?

In the end, I decided that I had no reason to be horrified at my lack of feelings on the matter. I didn't kill people.

I slew monsters.

I figured that the backup that Aegis called for must be getting close by now, so I settled down on the edge of the roof for the wait. I wasn't waiting long, as it was only three or so minutes until a red blur came barreling over the rooftops before slowing down upon reaching the roof I had fought the clones. I made my way over to the man, who I assumed must be Velocity, Brockton Bay's resident speedster.

"Hey there." I said tiredly. I wasn't physically tired, but I had just had a pretty deep moment of introspection, so I felt a little drained. "Sorry, but you missed the fight."

Velocity, who had tensed up when I arrived on the roof, relaxed again. "You chased off Oni Lee? Nicely done, not even I like facing off against him." I hesitated a moment, because all of a sudden this conversation had become pretty awkward.

"Not… exactly." I hedged. At his inquiring look, I sighed. "Okay, um, just- just follow me, okay?" I leaped off the roof and used my Ivy Whip to pull myself over to Oni Lee's body. Velocity landed a moment after me, and looked down at the corpse. He froze.

"Is that- Okay, uh, I think we should probably wait for Armsmaster and Miss Militia." His tone was neutral, but I could tell that this had thrown him a bit.

I nodded, a sick feeling in my stomach. "Yeah, I understand."

OoOoO

Two hours later, I was sitting once more in a debriefing room in the PRT base, except instead of a friendly chat with Miss Militia, I was having a rather tense conversation with Armsmaster. Miss Militia was standing nearby, though.

"Alright, so for the record. You, Aegis, and Vista were returning from your patrol. Oni Lee appeared, and challenged you to cease your activity in the Docks. When you refused, he engaged you. Was he using lethal force?" At the question, his tone changed from neutral to inquisitive, and I nodded.

"Yeah, he was trying to cut my throat, I think, but I could dodge that. The parts that I was having more trouble with were the grenades and his gun." I replied.

Armsmaster leaned forward at that. "Yes, the gun. This would be this firearm?" He slid a picture of what was, as far as I could remember, the same weapon that had been used against me just hours earlier.

"Yeah, that's it." I stated.

He continued. "How did you manage to find Oni Lee's original body?"

"I can see people's… aggression? I guess? In addition, I know the position of all the living things around me. I just scanned around me for a figure that was hanging back, and checked that it was hostile to me." I didn't mention that I could only see people's threat levels sometimes, as I usually drank a Dangersense potion before patrolling, so it would probably be moot anyways.

Armsmaster sat back at this. "Fascinating. Still, how did you manage to attack him? Usually, Oni Lee would teleport out if he saw an attack coming." His voice seemed puzzled.

"I…" I paused, suddenly unsure if I should be telling them these sorts of specifics. I mentally shrugged. Bah, whatever. It's not like the heroes will use this against me, right? "I hit him with a meteorite." After saying that, I lowered my eyebrows. That sounded a lot more impressive than it was, I think. "A small one." I amended.

"A… meteorite." Armsmaster said slowly. "You have the power to call down meteors?" He sounded horrified, and I didn't blame him. It sounded bad, but honestly? The sword wasn't capable of making comets large enough to wipe out the dinosaurs. They were pretty much a foot around, at the largest.

"Sort of. I used this." I put my hand on the table, and materialized the Starfury on the table. "If I swing this sword, I call down a small… star-like thing, on the location I focus on. This was the only weapon I had that has a large enough range and fast enough speed to take down Oni Lee from several roofs over. I wasn't trying to kill him, but…" I shrugged my shoulders. "I may have underestimated how powerful this is."

Armsmaster moved as if to pick up the sword, but as soon as his hands touched it, he jerked back. "Very well. Thank you for your account. Now, I have some things to tell you. First, know this: Neither the Protectorate or the PRT hold you accountable for Oni Lee's death. It was a clear case of self-defence." He took a breath. "But, I would like to emphasize that this is the exact reason that we have a Wards program. Membership in the Wards allows you to have a place to test your abilities in a safe environment, which can help you avoid accidents like this in the future. We're not trying to force you to do anything, but I cannot recommend it highly enough." His tone was grim, and I slumped internally.

I wanted to accept, I really did. But with the way things are right now? Impossible. "Sorry, but I can't join at the moment." I stated regretfully.

He nodded wearily, as though he hadn't expected any other reply. "I understand. Now, second: Lung is going to find out about this. When he does, he will be gunning for you. If you were a member of the Wards, the Protectorate would be able to do quite a lot to ensure your safety, but as an independent hero? You're going to have a lot of heat on you. Are you certain you can handle this?"

No, not at all. If I had to face Lung right now? He'd probably crush me. There was pretty much no way that I could take him on.

...At the moment. In another few weeks? That's another matter. "I'll have to lay low for a bit, but yeah, I can handle it." He must have heard something in my voice, because he gave me an odd look.

"...Very well, that's everything we need from you. Good luck, Terrarian, and well done." He nodded to me as I left, and a PRT officer escorted me out of the building.

As I wandered off into the night, I resumed my patrol, solo this time. After all, The Horsts thought I was sleeping at a friend's house, so I couldn't go back until tomorrow morning- technically this morning- at the earliest.

I almost wish that I could get tired. It would be nice to forget about everything and sleep for a bit.

OoOoO

The next day, after a strangely tense breakfast with the Horsts, I returned to school. I spotted Sophia glaring at me a few times, but with her injured ankle, she didn't start anything. The verbal harassment was as bad as ever, but I saw a few of the girls falter when I yawned during one of their diatribes. Not that I needed sleep anymore, but honestly? They were having a good try at making me.

In computers, I decided to take a bit of a look online to see if anyone was talking about last night. What I saw caused my heart to sink a little.

 **O**

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 **Topic: PRT Informational Release: Oni Lee Dead!**  
 **In: Boards ► Brockton Bay ► Local News**  
 **Bagrat** (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)  
Posted On Feb 12th 2011:  
Alright, people. I know that there have been rumors flying around left and right but today I come bearing pretty good news! Oni Lee is dead as a doornail!

You may cry out that this cannot be, but I got this information directly from my contacts in the PRT. Apparently, Oni Lee picked a bad fight with the new Independent Hero Terrarian, and got offed. From what my informants tell me, the body was slightly... cooked, or something. Weird?

In any case, rejoice! A murderer has been brought to justice!

 **O**

I froze up a little, horrified. Well, thanks PRT. Now there's no way that Lung won't be gunning for my head. It's official, I'm not going out on another patrol until I've killed the Eater of Worlds and upped my gear some more.

What else was being said about me?

 **O**

 **Topic: New Independent Hero: Terrarian!**  
 **In: Boards ► Brockton Bay ► Capes**  
 **Dawgsmiles** (Original Poster) (Veteran Member)  
Posted On Jan 1st 2011:  
So, new cape here in town, and even better, he's a hero! Not Protectorate or New Wave, he's independent. Goes by the name Terrarian. Let's go through what information we have on him.

First Appearance:  
Rescued a black man and his son from some Empire toughs, and then fought off Cricket and Stormtiger with the help of Miss Militia. Was wearing a suit of wooden armor, and purportedly used a boomerang and sword of wood.

Second Appearance:  
Now wearing a proper, metal suit of iron, with accompanying sword upgrade. He, along with the wards Clockblocker and Shadow Stalker, helped bring in Squealer and Skidmark, who have FAILED to be broken out, by the way. They're on their way to a federal prison for Parahumans. Terrarian exhibited fairly high speeds, as well as a decent Brute package.

Edit: Third Appearance:  
Arrived at a throw down between Lung, several Empire capes, and several members of the Protectorate. Apparently single-handedly took down Rune from the skies. Information on this fight is sparse, so it's unknown if he's a flier too or something else.

2nd Edit: Fourth Appearance:  
At the tail end of a patrol with the wards, he's engaged by Oni Lee.  
Now? Oni Lee's dead! Again, not too much information is known on this encounter.

All in all, Terrarian's career has been pretty eventful!

 **O**

I nodded to myself. Not a bad reputation! Overall I think that people are having a pretty positive attitude towards me. Normally, I would be more involved in the comments on PHO, but ever since I actually became a cape, I'd put all that behind me. Shame, really, people probably missed the keen analysis of xX_VoidCowboy_Xx.

But oh well. Anyways, for now, I'd better try to last through the school day. Either tonight or tomorrow night, I would face the Eater of Worlds.


	13. 2-3

**Author Note:** Yeah... it's been a while. However, I decided to pick this back up because I enjoy getting reviews and such. Usually, such things are enough to keep me going on their own. Not sure what happened to make me drop this earlier. Here's hoping I can keep this going strong!

2.3

With a swing of my Blade of Grass, I killed another of the horrifyingly silent creatures that haunted the Corruption. Looking around to behold the massive structure I was building, I grinned grimly to myself. Operation "Slay the Eater of Worlds" was proceeding quite well, in my opinion. When I had asked Trent for tips on how I should kill the monstrosity, he suggested I build myself an arena where I would have the advantage. He also informed me how to summon it without being surrounded by millions of tons of rock at the time.

Apparently, the… disgusting pieces of meat which I would sometimes receive from killing the Eaters of Souls, the strange, silent beasts in this place, could be fashioned into lures for the titan, if properly seasoned with the powdered remains of the purple mushrooms that also grew here in the corruption. While I was loathe to touch the disgusting materials, I held my breath and muscled through it, as it was all for the cause of becoming strong enough that I could fend off Lung long enough to stay alive, should he come to avenge his lieutenant.

Once I had my bait, and a finished "Slaughter Zone" for the Eater of Worlds, I used the Ivy Whip to travel up the supports to my platforms high in the sky. Holding the bait above my head, I _concentrated_ on it.

Which is when it disappeared, accompanied by a rumbling of the earth. Quickly, I brought out another recent acquisition, which I had purchased in bulk from a new arrival at my little village. Grenades. I had considered using the Ball of Death, a large flail that had dropped out of one of the Shadow Orbs I had broken the first time I had summoned it by accident, but Trent assured me this would be more effective.

Thus, I rained hell down upon the Behemoth-wannabe.

OoOoO

It took me several hours to mop up the stragglers, as the fight had progressed well, up until the point in which the monster had begun to split into smaller and smaller segments. The very smallest of which, it turned out, were somehow capable of tunneling fast enough to fly straight up out of the earth to me in my little haven above the corruption.

Also, Trent neglected to mention that every square foot of the thing spat acid at me. Luckily, it failed to dissolve my platforms, and I merely had to roll my grenades into the carefully prepared pits that I _had_ been going to drop the grenades out of, so it wasn't a huge wrench in my plans, just a minor hiccup.

Now though? I had managed to gather up everything it had dropped throughout its death, piece by piece. At least, I hoped it was everything. I suppose I'd never really know.

Let's see… a great deal more of that strange, purple metal that I had gotten from the Giant Eye, as well as some almost, but not quite, reflective scales, which don't quite resemble anything I actually saw on the Eater of Worlds, but I disregarded that fairly easily, compared to some of the things I saw here in Terraria. Some health potions, a heap of cash, and a bag, styled after the Eater of Worlds himself.

Remembering the awesome shield I had received from the Eye, I tore open the bag, excited to get another awesome piece of loot. More of the metal, more of the scales… and a rather grotesque, yet oddly fashionable, scarf made to resemble a giant purple worm. Equipping the item in place of the Shackle, I attempted to gauge what it did.

It didn't take me long. The instant I put it on, I felt… tougher. A lot tougher. I couldn't put it into precise terms, because how could you? All I knew was that my skin appeared to be a great deal more durable, yet no less flexible. Oddly enough, the scarf didn't increase my armor level at all, and I wasn't at all sure what to make of that. I rendered the scarf invisible, before gathering up the materials dropped by the boss. Time to see what my next set of armor looked like.

OoOoO

Pretty sweet, it turned out. While I hadn't been certain that purple would look very intimidating, I had to admit that it really was. At least, it was intimidating if the purple was very nearly reflective, but appeared to only display roiling clouds of black mist. Putting it on, I was surprised to learn that it wasn't that much stronger than the Ivy armor had been. Surely there was more to it than that? Getting up from the forge, I stepped outside and began to dash away from town. Maybe I could unlock some more of this armor's secrets in combat, like I had the Ivy Whip.

I quickly learned that this armor did more than merely protect me. As I moved and fought, the world seemed to slow slightly while I took each step or swung my sword. Enemies that before seemed spry and dangerous were now slow and lumbering. Though admittedly, Zombies had stopped being dangerous roughly a week before.

I grinned to myself. Another speed boost was _quite_ welcome. At this rate, I might be able to someday outpace Velocity! I returned to the cottage and placed the rest of the ore and scales in one of my chests, as it was about time to return to the real world. I'd figure out what weapon I should make out of the few remaining "Demonite" bars later, as Trent informed me they were called. For now, sadly, school awaited me.

OoOoO

I ambled through my classes, not quite aimlessly, but I couldn't quite focus on schoolwork when I was worrying about my ability to continue doing hero-work without getting jumped by Lung. I hadn't gone out for almost a week now, and while last night had been a HUGE increase in my capabilities, I still doubted I would last more than a minute against mother-fricking Lung of all people.

I passed Taylor's main tormentor, that red-haired girl, in the hall, and she gave me a glare. Their hassling had pretty much died off soon after Sophia dislocated her ankle, but I could have sworn that I had seen either her, or Sophia herself watching me from around corners occasionally. It almost got me to re-equip my Radar, but I wasn't about to let them unknowingly ruin my attempt to regain my unassisted situational awareness.

All in all, Winslow continued to be a zone of _blah._ Even the guys that had been trying to bring me into their social circles had been slightly less friendly recently, after I constantly rebuffed their invitations to hang out. Couldn't blame them for that, really, though it was slightly disappointing. It had been nice to feel… popular, for once.

After school, I got onto the bus, and continued the dreary routine that life in the real world had set for me. School was such a waste. If I could get away with spending the time I spent in school either patrolling or improving myself in Terraria, I would do so in a heartbeat. Sadly, I still had to at least pretend at a normal life. Now especially, seeing as if my cover was broken, Lung might send people after my mom. However, the boring run the day had bestowed on me ended pretty much the moment I stepped into the Horsts' home.

"Ah, well if it isn't mister Veder!" A voice I could honestly say I hadn't been expecting rang out once I entered the dining room. Startled, I looked towards the table to see none other than Max Anders, the same man I had met in my mother's hospital room almost a month earlier.

I fumbled for a response. I glanced over to see the Horsts chatting with an unfamiliar middle aged man wearing a suit that matched Mr. Anders, though I didn't recognize him. "Umm, hello sir. How… how are you?" I managed to say. Small talk had never been my forte, and by the way that my life was going, I doubted it would ever become a strength of mine. It was a lot easier to fight your way through an encounter than use diplomacy to defuse it, in my experience. That wasn't always an option, however.

Mr. Anders, however, seemed to eat and breathe chatter. "Quite well, my boy, quite well. Actually, we were just discussing something you might want to hear! Medhall is having the yearly Company Picnic this Saturday. You'll come with Jerry and Penny, won't you?" He was, of course, referring to the Horsts. I still didn't quite feel comfortable saying their first names, a probable consequence of my resentment that I needed a foster family at all. Not that I was going to inform them or Mr. Anders of this.

I blinked for a moment, trying and failing to come up with a viable reason to decline without sounding odd. In the end, I gave my assent. "Sure, I-uh, I'll come." I tried not to show my inner reluctance much.

Still, later that evening, long after Mr. Anders and his companion had left and I had escaped up to my room, I decided that perhaps it wouldn't be all that bad. I guess I could use a bit of a break from the stress of worrying about Lung. Just before crossing over to Terraria, I resolved to myself that I'd do my best to enjoy that picnic.


	14. 2-4

2.4

Friday night, and I was making my way across the world of Terraria, in the direction that Trent had suggested the Dungeon would likely be. From what he had said, the Dungeon was the next step towards getting stronger, and so, off I went.

I had been frustrated to learn that the Light's Bane, a sword I had made from the leftover Demonite was actually _worse_ than the Blade of Grass. The sheer waste of materials made me feel ill inside. I could have made myself a pretty powerful bow instead with the materials I had used to create it. I shook my head, trying to stop thinking about it. No point dwelling on it now. I trudged over another hill, alert, but not overly worried, as I had never been threatened much by pretty much anything on the surface in daylight. I only ever really saw Slimes.

That was when I saw it. A massive, green structure, larger than the entire village I had built combined. I approached it cautiously, and discovered an entryway, with stairs leading up to an open-air hallway, supported by thick stone pillars leading up to a small door. Standing in the middle of the hall was a pale, ill-looking man in shabby rags. He hadn't appeared to have cleaned himself in recent memory, and my sense of smell corroborated this. I quickly ceased breathing through my nose.

He stared at me through red-rimmed eyes, and opened his mouth, which contained a nearly-white tongue which nearly made me gag a little. He spoke in a raspy voice. "Greetings, traveler. This is the Dungeon, though you will not be able to enter."

This distracted me from my disgust. "Wait, what? Why not?" I asked, mentally setting aside the issue of his hygiene for now.

He chuckled, which sounded painful. "My captor rules this place, and he does not tolerate the living stepping foot on his domain. If you enter here, he will kill you swiftly." He swallowed, presumably attempting to wet his throat a little. "If you come here at night, you can challenge him, and free me from his curse. However," The man looked me up and down, and shook his head. "You don't stand a chance as you are now. Come back when you have gained in strength, stranger. You will not win this fight."

I felt unnerved, but also insulted. Too weak? Too weak? I had slain a giant Eye-demon thing, and a worm the size of a subway, and this guy thought I couldn't take on whoever this Dungeon Master was? However… I was getting a really bad feeling about this place. It might have just been in my head, but I was getting a strange chill up my spine at the thought of stepping towards the Dungeon door.

I turned away from the old man, and pulled out my Mirror. As I held it up to my face and activated it, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the dishevelled man lower his face into his hands.

I left.

OoOoO

I spent the Terrarian night in the caverns below the surface, trying to find more Heart Crystals. I had found a few, and some ore deposits, but I had failed to find any more underground houses. I wasn't entirely sure why I was gathering the ore at this point, as I doubted it would even come close to the Demonite, but I gathered it all the same.

I was just about to start tunneling further down when all of a sudden, I had a feeling of _wrongness._ Something of mine was under attack. I didn't hesitate to teleport back. As soon as I arrived, Trent spoke up.

"Ah, Greg, thank goodness you returned. Goblins are attacking the town!" He spoke quickly, and I blinked a little. There were things that attacked the town? I couldn't even recall Zombies or Slimes spawning here recently. That was… kinda scary, honestly. I still wasn't sure how time passed here when I wasn't present, so I just hoped that nothing could attack while I was in the real world.

Nervous musings on the future were shoved from my mind as I tore out threw the front door, to the sight of chaos. The Arms Dealer was sniping attacking goblins with what looked like a rifle, the Demolitionist was tossing grenades to great effect, and the attacking goblins weren't even getting close to the Dryad's hut, with her hurricane of leaves providing an intimidating defense.

I pulled out the Blade of Grass, and got to work.

OoOoO

I bisected another of the Goblin Sorcerers, and as if it was some sort of signal, all the goblins remaining turned and fled. I stared in slight disbelief. What the hell? They show up, wait for a few hundred of themselves to die, and then run away? What were they hoping to _get_ out of this raid? I considered chasing after them, but I was already tired of fighting them. Plus, I was pretty sure I should be waking up soon. Today was the day of the Medhall picnic thing, after all. For a moment, I considered feigning sickness, in an attempt to get out of having to go. After all, when it came to a choice between working on gathering enough strength to make Lung reconsider coming after me, and going to a great big gathering of people and having to be social for a few hours, it wasn't really a choice.

But… at the same time, I didn't want to offend Mr. Anders. I mean, I didn't really care to offend anyone, but it seemed like an especially bad idea to offend corporate bigwigs. It would probably be for the best to just go along with the picnic. I sighed a little in unhappiness, but returned to considering the drops I had gotten from the goblin invaders.

There were two things, mainly. One, was a few stacks of a strange little spiky metal ball. Looked like they were projectiles, like my shurikens or throwing knives. The other, was much more exciting. Some sort of gun, I think? I aimed it off into the distance away from the village, and fired it.

Something instantly shot out of the barrel, but it looked like it was still connected to the gun. After whizzing through the air for a couple seconds, gravity finally took ahold of it and it hit the ground. It immediately began to retract until it had replaced itself inside the gun.

I blinked a few times. "Was that… a harpoon?"

OoOoO

The picnic was going exactly as I had feared. I would stand around, uncomfortable around so many people. I wasn't sure what I was doing wrong, but things just weren't going my way. I had quickly gotten myself a plate, and made myself some hot dogs. Getting so close to the table had been uncomfortable, as the blueprints that flew through my mind quickly converged and informed me of all the different meals and dishes I could prepare with what was on hand, but I had pushed them aside and made myself a pair of simple, plain hot dogs. With relish.

After getting my food, I had spied out a fairly lightly populated corner of the pavilion, and slinked over there. But within minutes, I had begun to be bombarded by people. I tried to politely say as few words as possible to the seemingly endless stream of altogether too cheerful picnic-goers.

After too long of this, the stream died down into a trickle, and then stopped. Once I had gone a whole five minutes without being spoken to, I sighed in relief and dug back into my food. After polishing off the second hot dog, I threw away my plate and looked longingly towards the parking lot. It had only been about forty-five minutes, so I doubted we would be leaving soon, but I held out hope that something would occur to cause the Horsts to leave early

Though I doubted I would have such luck. I sighed again, this time in mild despair. Then, I tensed slightly, as another person was ambling over to me. I glanced over at whoever it was. A boy, close to my age, I think. Slightly… overweight, I guess. Taller than me by at at least half a foot. Blonde hair, like most of the people here. When he got to within about ten feet of me, he took a seat at one of the nearby picnic tables. I waited for about twenty seconds before he spoke.

"Hey, uh… I guess you aren't too fond of the crowds either." He said, haltingly. I paused for a few moments, before nodding. "Yeah, me neither. I'm Theo, by the way. Theo Anders." My eyebrows rose. Anders? I mean, yeah, he looked a lot like Mr. Anders, but I wouldn't have thought him the man's son. Heck, half the people here looked like the man. Maybe Medhall was into Nepotism, or something.

"I'm Greg. Greg Veder." I replied. At this point, my knowledge of social etiquette stepped in. Wait, I meant lack thereof. Yes. The silence began to grow awkward. After a fairly uncomfortable few minutes, yet another person began to approach us. A glance in their direction revealed that this time, it was a girl. I bit younger than me and, presumably, Theo. Light brown hair, and a bit shorter than me.

"Hey Theo." She said. She pointedly ignored me, which I was completely fine with. "What are you doing over here?" She slightly stressed the last word, which I didn't really understand. Was this part of the pavilion somehow worse than the others? I sniffed quietly, to check if this place smelled bad and I just hadn't noticed, but I couldn't smell anything. I hope it doesn't smell.

Theo shifted uncomfortably. "Oh, hey Jane. I just… wanted to get away from Max for a bit." I was confused at the way he had worded that. Who called their dad their first name? I had always called… well, I had always referred to him as my Dad. Not recently, of course.

The now named 'Jane' sniffed derisively at that, but sat herself down next to Theo. They began talking quietly, though it was mostly from Jane to Theo, who didn't exactly seem eager to chat. I continued to stare off into the distance and tuned out the two. I began to make my plan for the near future. I had to make my way into the Dungeon, but I don't think that I would feel comfortable doing so unless I could find some sort of power-up underground that changed the game a little. Maybe a potion of some sort could solve my problem? If I could somehow make a potion that would give me a big boost for at least a short time, I might be able to use it to kill whatever the Dungeon Master is.

After a short time, I was interrupted from my musings by Theo speaking up. I hadn't quite heard what he said though, so I looked back over to him and shook my head slightly. "Sorry, what was that? I zoned out a bit."

Theo looked a little pained, as though being chattered at by Jane was chipping away at his soul. "Oh, that's-that's fine, sorry to bother you, I was just wondering if you had any favorite… video games? Maybe?" From the snort of disgust that Jane made at that statement, I had to guess that she wasn't much of a gamer.

I had to actually give the question some thought. It had been quite a while since I had played a video game, not counting the time with the Wards and Assault, of course. I didn't even know what sorts of games had come out recently. Best to play it safe, I guess. "I don't know what new releases have happened recently, pretty much the only game I've played in a while is Super Cape Duelists 4."

Luckily, Theo seemed to know where this conversation should go. "Oh, yeah, that one's pretty fun. I heard that the 5th game might be coming out this summer, actually. Who's your favorite cape to play as?" From there, the conversation proceeded more amicably, with even Jane joining in after a bit. Weird, I hadn't thought she gamed.

When the Horsts, with Max Anders, approached us, I glanced up to realize that several hours had passed. The picnic was being packed up, and at least half of the people that had attended were gone. I stood up, and said goodbye to Theo and Jane, who responded enthusiastically and reluctantly, in turn. I guess Jane didn't like me very much.

On the drive home, Mrs. Horst looked back at me and spoke up. "So, looks like you made some friends at the picnic, wasn't so bad, right dear?"

While it always made me uncomfortable when she used an endearment to me, I had to admit that the picnic had been more enjoyable than I had expected. I couldn't remember the last time I had had a nice conversation with anyone. Winslow sure wasn't really the place for it. "Yeah, Theo's a pretty good guy, it sounds like."

When we got back to their house, it was about 4:00 in the afternoon. I went up to my room for a bit, and pulled out my gaming system. I went about setting it up, and in short order, turned it on. I played the game for about half an hour, before putting it away. It just wasn't as fun to play it on your own. In the end, I turned the system off and got up. It was too late in the afternoon to take a nap, but too early to go to sleep, so I wouldn't really be able to get away with returning to Terraria. I guess that I'll just go downstairs and find out what the Horsts are up to.

I had started walking down the stairs when I heard the news article that Mr. Horst was watching on TV, and I froze.

"...casualty levels are at a fairly high level for non-Endbringer threats, and the Boston Protectorate is calling for reinforcements from surrounding Protectorate teams in the hopes of dealing with the cape known as "Echidna", a case-53 that appears to have gone terribly wrong. Talk of calling in the Triumvirate has been put forward, and it is highly probable that Legend himself will come from New York to assist. If the battle goes on for too much longer, I have been told that Echidna's threat assessment may be raised to S-class-"

My breath hitched as the television was turned off. My mind racing as I tried to figure out what to do with the information. An S-class threat? Like Ellisburg? Boston was pretty close to Brockton Bay. If this Echidna person had the potential to be as bad as Nilbog, but less restraint, it could easily spill over from Boston to here. Should I go to help?

It didn't take me long to decide to go. The only thing now was to figure out how to get over there without spilling my identity. I walked down the stairs as casually as I could manage, and spoke to Mrs. Horst. "Uh, P-Penny? I, uh, just wanted to know if I could go hang out with my friend Sparky, alright? I, um, I'll probably spend the night, too." I spoke nervously, I couldn't help it. I had no idea how to go about these things.

Luckily, it would appear that the magic word in this case was 'Penny', as it was the first time I had referred to her as she had requested. "Oh, of course dear! Would you like to eat dinner before you go?"

I shook my head. "Oh, no thanks, I'll be, um, I'll be eating there." Or, more likely, not at all seeing as food was no longer necessary. Not that she needed to know that. Still, permission obtained, I said goodbye to them both and walked outside. I made my way along, quickly equipping my Radar, and dodged into an alleyway once I was certain there was nobody around. From there, I put on the rest of my equipment and was racing towards Boston.


	15. 2-5

**_Author Note:_ Good lord, this chapter was hard to write. I went through roughly seven different drafts of it before I finally found a version that I could live with. Sorry for the radio silence!**

2.5

It took me just under an hour to reach Boston after leaving Brockton Bay, as I could move in a roughly straight line, rather than just following the roads. Once I got to the outskirts of Boston, I slowed down and started to move more cautiously. I didn't exactly know what the situation was here, let alone what people were already doing in order to fight Echidna. While I was running, I noticed some policemen setting up warning signs. I squinted over at them, trying to read what they said. Looked like some sort of warning to anyone coming into the city that there was an emergency. Huh, in retrospect, that kinda thing seemed kinda obvious.

Running across one of the outlying neighborhoods, the skyline of central Boston became visible. It had more tall buildings than Brockton Bay. I wasn't sure if they qualified as skyscrapers or not, but Boston definitely had a lot more people in it than the Bay. Once I reached a part of the city that I figured _had_ to be in one of the busier parts of town, I stopped. Okay, I had to admit that I didn't really know where to go from here.

Then, I looked back over to the 'skyscrapers'. I might not be able to tell where anyone was from here… but surely I'd be able to see something from up there, right? I didn't have any better ideas, so I started running again. Hopefully, I wasn't too late to help.

OoOoO

Once I was at the base of one of the taller buildings I had set my eyes on, I glanced up at the higher floors, before glancing from side to side. Boston was just too _big._ I wasn't sure if even going to the top of this building would be enough for me to find anything in this city. Hopefully, I was just underestimating how visible a cape fight would be. I mean, if this was the potential S-class threat that they had been talking about, it must be a pretty big deal, right? I quickly shot out my ivy whips and pulled myself up the side of the building. I spun around in a circle, doing my best to scan the horizon for anything that might be a sign of a battle. Nothing was obvious, sadly. I saw a few locations that looked like the _remains_ of a cape fight, but there wasn't anything moving in those spots now.

After wasting another few minutes failing to see anything of use, I jumped off the side of the building and grappled over to another, making my way across the rooftops to the next tall building that I could find. Why on earth was it this hard to find out where Echidna was? Maybe I should have watched the news for a bit longer, that might have given me a few more clues on where to look. As I practically flew over the streets, I was unsettled by how there were almost no signs of life below me. Was everyone in an Endbringer shelter? I was pretty sure that it was pretty much standard procedure to send everyone to those in the event of most of the higher-class threats, though in the case of an attack by the Slaughterhouse 9, most people just left town. You could never figure how long they might stick around.

After reaching my next destination, I made my way to its roof and began to look around again, beginning to lose hope that I would be able to do anything to help here before it ended, one way or another.

Which is, of course, when I spotted a yellow glow bursting across the city out of the corner of my eye. I quickly whipped my head around in order to look in that direction, and off in the distance, I saw a floating figure bombarding the area beneath him with a beam of light. That... that was Legend! A member of the Triumvirate! Which made sense, of course. We were relatively close to New York, Legend's area of the Protectorate. If a borderline S-class threat appeared near him, of course he would show up to fight it. Heartened, I scanned the area of the city between me and the fight, before pausing at the river in the way. I checked my inventory, and groaned. Of course I forgot to bring a Waterwalking potion this time. I did, however, have something almost as good. I downed a Gravitation potion and, as an afterthought, a Featherfall potion. This sort of flight wasn't incredibly practical in the middle of a fight, but it should help me get to where I need to be pretty quickly. I braced myself mentally and started running in the right direction, _twisting_ my center of gravity so that I began to float upwards.

It wasn't quite as terrifying as it had been the first time, both because of my experience, and the fact that the Featherfall potion was slowing the rate at which I fell into the sky. Shifting back and forth as I slid across the sky, I waited until I was almost above the chaos before descending.

The sight I was met with was confusing, but I put all that aside to focus on the creature that Legend was fighting. It appeared to be some sort of dragon, though without a tail. It was dragging itself forward across the street while spitting streams of fire in controlled jets at the hero. For some reason, its back legs appeared to be immobile, as while it was moving, they simply hung behind it. Was this Echidna? If so, where were all the other heroes? Something didn't seem right here, for as scary as the beast was, it didn't quite scream 'S-Class Threat.' As soon as I touched down on the street, I dashed forward, pulling out the Blade of Grass. Since its attention was still focused on the threat in the sky, it didn't notice my charge until I plunged my sword into its chest.

A moment later, it gave a surprisingly human scream, and the surface of the dragon flickered and pulled in on itself. It turned its head away from the air and lifted one of its legs to swipe at me. I backtracked swiftly, watching the limb strike the road with a resounding crack. I sure hoped that the city could afford to repair the streets after this, because they definitely needed it. Legend took advantage of the creature's momentary lapse of attention and fired an intense wave of heat at the dragon's neck. Again, its skin seemed to sink and distort, and I noticed that it was actually getting smaller. Now that it seemed overwhelmed and weakened, I quickly circled it and closed in on the creature's side, swinging my blade through its spine.

Abruptly, the dragon vanished. Laying on the street, there was a girl with misshapen legs and pockmarked flesh. I reared back. Holy crap, that was a person? They were definitely dead, it looked like I chopped right into her back. Was this Echidna? She had seemed to be shrinking over the course of the fight, maybe she had been colossal at the beginning, which would explain the fearsome rating. My thoughts were interrupted by Legend descending to the street next to me.

"Thanks for the assistance, but I thought that I had requested that everyone with a Mover rating like yours ensured that none of them escaped the area?" His tone was questioning. Them? There were more of these?

"I just got here, uh, sir. What's going on? Where is everyone? This lady wasn't Echidna, was she?" I was a little bewildered at this point.

The floating hero made a sound of realization. "Ah, a new arrival. We've managed to pin Echidna and her clones in the Bunker Hill area. If you can hurry over there, you should be able to meet up with one of the squads preventing her clones from breaking through. The most important thing you can do right now is keep any more of them from escaping into the rest of Boston while our heavy hitters get rid of the few that are still at large. Great work, young man." At that, he shot back into the sky and off into the distance. Still a little confused, I made my way up onto the roofs and began to travel in the general direction that he had pointed me in.

After yet another jaunt across the city, I noticed a small group of people on my Radar sense, hiding on one of the taller buildings nearby. A jump and grappling later landed me on the roof they occupied. One of the figures - A girl in a purple bodysuit, - spun around and aimed some sort of weapon at me. I stopped moving and raised my hands in a non-aggressive gesture instinctively. Another of the figures, a girl in a red and black outfit, spoke up.

"Not an enemy, Flechette." The purple-clad girl relaxed a little, though her weapon was still at ready. The speaker continued. "You're here to help us with the perimeter?" I nodded, getting the idea that this girl was a Thinker of some sort. "Great. I'm Roulette, she's Flechette, and he's Jouster." She pointed to herself, the purple girl, and a guy who was wearing... actually, he was wearing something that resembled some of my past armors. A bit more stylized, though.

I hesitated to respond just long enough to make the situation a tad awkward, before I coughed. "Um, hello. I'm Terrarian. I just reached Boston about ten minutes ago, would you guys mind filling me in on what we're doing here? I took off as soon as I saw what was going on in the news, and I think that I missed a lot of stuff I probably should have figured out before leaving." Roulette waved at Jouster and turned back to the city, presumably watching for any of the... clones? They were probably keeping watch for any that were trying to leave the area.

Jouster began to speak. "Echidna, an S-class threat, appeared in the middle of Boston earlier today. After an initial panic and rampage, it was discovered that any people that touched Echidna caused her to spawn a clone of them. The clones are incredibly tough, and psychotic. Most of the clones immediately began to go berserk, attacking everything and everyone around them. Worse, if a cape is cloned, the clone has a variation of the original cape's powers. That is why Echidna has been declared such a high threat. The current plan is to keep her and the majority of her clones contained while our heaviest hitters, like Alexandria or Myrrdin, clean up the clones that managed to escape the quarantine area. Once they finish with that, they'll join us here, and we'll begin to systematically shrink the quarantine area and try to flush Echidna out, so that she can either be captured or killed. Any questions?"

I considered the massive info-dump that I had just received. One point came to mind. "So... they aren't people, then?"

He seemed a little taken aback, but he rallied himself. "Not people - well, I suppose that's true, in a sense." He fell silent, and leaned against the railing again, though I saw him glancing at me over the course of the next few minutes.

Satisfied with the response, I turned back to Roulette. "So our job is to make sure that none of the clones escape the area? I'm guessing that you're using your power to see any of them coming?" She nodded, but remained quiet, suddenly focused on something below.

"Yes on both counts, and speak of the devil and he shall appear. Looks like one of the Harmonic clones is down there, with what looks like a clone of... Lightslinger, maybe. They're covered in some kind of coat of light, anyways. Jouster, what do you think, should we wait for help? Lightslinger is pretty good, so clones of him..." She looked at the armored lancer, who walked over to her with me and looked down at the pair of clones. A woman - no, a monster in human form, with light blonde hair and bumpy, unnatural looking skin. Near her there was a vaguely human shaped blur of light, swirling in on itself. I didn't know much about Lightslinger, even though he was a Protectorate member of one of Brockton Bay's neighboring cities, but I could vaguely remember hearing something about him using the light produced by streetlamps as weapons in some engagement against some of Blasto's creations.

Jouster broke into my attempts to recall more with a firm declaration. "Call it in, of course, but let's hold them up before they can get too far. Flechette, you know the drill. Terrarian, I assume that you're good for some close combat?"

I grinned in response, though I knew he couldn't see it. "Definitely."

Then I jumped off the roof.


	16. 2-6

2.6

Due to my method of descent, I reached the ground a great deal sooner than my companions on the roof. Which, in turn, meant that I was the only one fighting the clones for at least half a minute. I probably should have thought that through a bit more. Oh well. Stepping forwards quickly, I mentally reviewed my options. Blade of Grass? It was probably my best close quarters weapon. The Starfury was incredibly powerful, but it was also not that easy to aim when I was actually thinking about it. Swinging it without thinking hadn't failed me yet, but unlike what the other students at Winslow thought, I _couldn't_ stop thinking at will.

In the end, I decided to go with something with a bit more brute force, but still at range. My Ball of Death, a massive purple flail on a chain that didn't quite behave how gravity would prefer, was flung out towards the pair. The Lightslinger clone quickly slid aside, but the other, a Harmonic clone, I think? She wasn't quite so mobile. The impact with my flail flung her across the street, but she crawled to her feet a moment later. Some sort of Brute, I guess. I didn't have much time to analyze that, however, as the Lightslinger clone attacked while my flail was returning to me. The mass of light moved in a way that was smooth, but changed directions erratically. I only had a few seconds to consider where the attack would come from before a spear-like protrusion was disgorged from the clone.

Fortunately for me, with all the speed boosts that I had, a few seconds was more than enough. Sidestepping the attack, I moved into my flail, withdrawing it into my inventory as I did so. Sweeping out the Blade of Grass in another smooth motion, I bisected where I thought the center of the ball of light to be.

The result was instantaneous, as two halves of a corpse fell to the ground near me. Now that the main threat was gone, I turned my attention back to the Harmonic clone, who was now attempting to stagger away from me, supporting herself against a building. Apparently her Brute rating, assuming that whatever had saved her from dying on impact with my flail _had_ been a Brute rating, was very, very low. Shrugging to myself internally, I pulled out the Harpoon gun and shot her with it. Just to make sure, I shot her with it a few more times, making sure to hit her in the chest and head. She didn't get up this time.

I heard a clanking thump as Jouster finally made it to the street. He was m=breathing heavily, but when he looked at me, and then around me, he gave me a tentative smile. "O-oh, wow. Um, great job Terrarian. Lightslinger is really good, and based on some of the earlier ones, it looked like his clones inherited his skills. Taking one of those out is really impressive."

I looked at him a bit blankly. "Really? Huh. That wasn't... Well, anyways, what do we do now?" Normally, I would have been all too content to bask in some admiration, as when did I ever get _that?_ Right now, however, there were, presumably, at least a few clones running around out there, not to mention Echidna herself.

After we had returned to the vantage point atop the roof, we settled back in to wait once more. I wasn't too happy with that, as I felt that I could make a much bigger difference if I was some sort of mobile reinforcement or something. With my speed, any group having trouble with their opponents could call in and I was capable of reaching pretty much anywhere within a couple blocks in half a minute, give or take. Sadly, it would seem that I was getting the 'Ward' treatment, which meant pretending I was made of glass.

I understood why they did it, I mean, what sort of organization would the Protectorate be if they took in young people with unfathomable powers and sent them off to fight in battles that nobody had a great chance of surviving? Obviously, to reassure the public, the Wards' families, and even the Wards themselves in some cases, they had to take a gentler approach. I just objected to being lumped in with them. I wasn't assigned here. I chose to come. I know the risks, and I made the decision anyways. All the same, I'm being told to sit and wait here with these Wards when I could be out there helping. It was incredibly frustrating.

There were monsters out there, and they needed to be put down.

After what seemed like an hour of grinding my teeth, but was probably closer to ten or twelve minutes, we received a message on Roulette's radio.

"Echidna has come into the open. She is engaging the first responders on Eden street. All direct combatants and support capes are to meet on Bartlett street where a more detailed plan of attack will be drawn. Command Close." The voice was crisp and clear, but I recognized it from the news and from videos on PHO. Dragon was directing this herself. That honestly made me feel better already.

I quickly turned to the others. "I'm from Brockton Bay, so I don't know where those places are. Do any of you know?" I had to get there as fast as I could, but all the speed in the world wouldn't help me if I didn't know where to go.

Roulette nodded and pointed in a direction. "Bartlett is in that direction. We should probably head there on-" But I didn't hear the rest of what she had to say, because I had already flown into the air. The Gravitation Potion's effects were still up, and I took advantage of the ability to ignore all the obstacles in my way.

Ten seconds later, I touched down on what I assumed to be Bartlett street, as a small crowd of capes was growing. It was mostly disorganized, but that was quickly being fixed by a group of Protectorate members led by Alexandria herself, organizing people into groups. I looked on for a few minutes before suddenly, a man was grabbing my attention through the sudden invasion of my personal space.

"Are you capable of delivering a moderate attack, say, on the level of a rifle, from a distance of 50 feet, minimum?" The question was rather specific, but asked in a very bored tone. I could only wonder at how many times this man had had to ask this question in the past five minutes alone.

I began to reply. "Yes, I can-" But I was cut off almost immediately.

"Good, go report to Lightslinger." He pointed at a cape wearing a mostly intact armored body suit, though it was missing one of the sleeves from the elbow down. I had an odd feeling, remembering killing one of this man's clones not fifteen minutes earlier. All the same, I did as instructed and strode over to the specified cape, around whom there was already a sizable crowd. Which wasn't very odd, come to think of it. I mean, among capes with powers that can dish out some damage, the power of a gun was rather _low_ on the spectrum.

Lightslinger waited, rather impatiently from what I could tell, until the stream of people joining us had slowed to a trickle, at which point he spoke out to the group. "Alright, each of you are going to be paired with either a Thinker or someone that can provide battlefield awareness, as well as a Brute. Each of these cells will be expected to work in tandem when required, but by and large, our jobs are going to be to provide a slowly shrinking perimeter and to ensure that no threats escape into the city at large, which may sound familiar, as many of you were already engaged in that on a wider scale. Well, that's because this is still _really important._ " He paused to take a deep breath to calm himself. "We aren't expected to engage Echidna directly, because that has ended badly a large number of times. Instead, the heaviest hitting Blasters and Shakers, like Legend, are going to be hitting her from a distance while keeping her as immobile as possible. Got it?" After a round of nods and sounds of agreement, people were picked out of the crowd, one by one, and grouped with a pair of other capes.

My group consisted of a rather solidly built teen made of metal that I recognized pretty much immediately. Weld was a pretty popular Ward, and I had read some articles on him on PHO before. He was probably our Brute. The other was a female cape that I didn't recognize.

"Swarm." She said, a curtain of bugs around her shoulders buzzing out the word as she spoke it. I shuddered, and stepped back a little. The bugs themselves weren't that bad, I had seen larger ones in the caverns in Terraria, but the general effect of her appearance was more than a little unsettling. "I control bugs." Underneath the creepy buzzing, her voice sounded... dead. As though she were reading the words off of a script rather than speaking her mind. She was pretty tall, and her costume was pretty dark, predominantly black and grey, with green lenses over her eyes. Bugs of various kinds were crawling over and around her, including among their ranks, that I could see at least, cockroaches, spiders, and various other kinds that I couldn't quite recall the names of at the moment.

After waiting a moment to see if she would elaborate any further, Weld spoke up. "Weld, a Ward here in Boston. I'm pretty tough, if I do say so myself, and over time, I can manipulate the shape of metals on my arms and such, turn my arms into weapons and so on."

They both looked at me, and I fidgeted a little. "Terrarian. My power is... weird. But what's relevant here, is that I have a variety of weapons I can pull up at a moment's notice." I quickly cycled through a few weapons, like the Blade of Grass, Ball of Death, Boomstick, and Harpoon gun. "I'm also a Brute and a Mover." I didn't really want to get any further into my powers, so I clammed up then.

Weld just nodded, and proceeded. "A bit like Miss Militia, then, but with some good accompanying powers. Nice. Alright, our area's over here. You've heard the plan, we just have to make sure that no clones or any other threat get past us into the city. At certain intervals, we'll be ordered to close in a little and shrink the perimeter. Swarm, can you tell us if there are any clones coming through?" She nodded, but didn't say anything.

Weld continued to try and make small talk, but the conversation was quickly strangled after I quickly downed a Hunter Potion, Nightowl Potion, and a Dangersense Potion before setting up vigil on a rooftop. On occasion, I would pull out the Harpoon gun and take out a clone that scrambled towards us, but while it was fairly common to have to deal with them at the beginning, after a short time, the incursions ceased. We were waiting for about five minutes in silence, keeping watch, when a message came from our radio.

"Eidolon is down, repeat, Eidolon is down. All cells, converge on Eden street. We are beginning Contingency Seven. Repeat, We are beginning Contingency Seven. Cell leaders, explain as you move. Command out."

OoOoO

 **Author Note:** Just wanted to make note, Eidolon was NOT cloned in this instance, he was taken down by an especially clever combination of clones by Noelle. This chapter feels a little short, but I think it needed to be gotten out of the way so that the REAL excitement can begin. _(Boss fight in Earth Bet, yeah!)_


	17. 2-7

2.7

I jumped off the roof and joined up with Weld and Swarm, who were already speaking quietly. My mind was blank for a few seconds before it kicked back into gear. "What's Contingency 7, and which way was Eden street again?" The big question came first, but the second wasn't exactly irrelevant.

Weld waved us in a direction and started moving there. "Contingency 7, while there _is_ a bit more to it than this, it basically boils down to; 'Everybody come and try to beat up the bad guy.' We're gonna stay smart about things, try and avoid getting anyone else cloned, but it's kinda important that Echidna goes down. If she manages to get away from everything today... well, she could become a _massive_ threat." I nodded in response, and Swarm remained silent. I was a bit torn. On the one hand, I could just fly ahead like I had the last time. However... that would probably reflect badly on me seeing as I had been assigned to this cell. Also, it might mess up the logistics of the upcoming fight a little. This was going to be a coordinated battle, and that meant going along with the plan.

As much as I didn't like it, I decided to stay with them. Which didn't mean that I wasn't hoping that we could get a move on. Setting a brisk pace, we were heading towards Eden street as quickly as Swarm could manage. She wasn't exactly slow, per se, but she definitely wasn't used to this much physical activity in such a short amount of time. Which made sense, for a Master. Most capes with minions of some sort tended to stay put and direct a fight from a distance.

After what felt like far too long, we managed to reach Eden street. What we found there... it could only be described as chaos. There were at least a dozen different fights going on, and those were probably just the ones that I could see from here. The big question was, however, where is Echidna? After looking around for a few seconds, I decided that she would probably turn up sometime soon, and that I couldn't afford to waste time looking if I could be spending that same time helping some of the capes in the alliance finish their fights quickly. Now... where should we put ourselves?

Almost as if in answer to my silent question, Weld spoke to me. "Terrarian, does your suit protect you from Radiation?" I blinked back at him for a moment, and considered the question. Radiation... how would that register to my power? A debuff? Damage over time? Would it even affect me? All in all, I decided that my power would probably blunt the effects at least, and I could always just rely on potions to keep me alive long enough for someone else to help me out, if worse came to worst.

"Yeah. It protects me from almost anything like that." Of course, it wasn't exactly my armor that did that, but that didn't really matter right now.

"Good, good, alright, can you help out with that Harmonic clone over there?" He pointed at a portion of the battlefield where someone that I recognized was fighting. Shielder, one of New Wave's younger members, was wrapped up in one of his namesakes, while being attacked by the clone, who seemed to be using some sort of energy projection from her hands to try and cut away at the shield, to no avail. I assumed that those energy fields on her hands were the cause of the aforementioned radiation. Alright, seemed simple enough. I began to move towards the fight while pulling out my Harpoon Gun. It had been what finished off the last clone of Harmonic that I had dealt with, and thus seemed like one of the better choices for a repeat of that task. I carefully took aim at the clone's torso, the part of her that moved the least, and let loose with the harpoon. It hurtled through the air towards her and-

 _-Clang!_ Bounced off of a suddenly appearing energy field that sprang up around her midsection. Her head spun towards me and she snarled. She began to move towards me and rose her arms, forming a new pair of energy blades from her hands. However, in so doing, she had taken her eyes off of the other combatant in this fight. After taking a few steps away from him, Shielder dropped the bubble for a moment and let loose with a beam of light. It struck the clone in the legs and she screamed as she fell to the ground. Wrapping himself in a new bubble, he pulled out a radio and stood over the clone while speaking into it.

I guess he had to report in to command or whatever, but since he was busy, I'd finish this for him. I walked towards him, and put away the Harpoon. I spent the few seconds reaching them deciding which weapon would best suit this task. Quickly coming to the conclusion that the Blade of Grass would be the most precise tool for the job, I pulled it out, and in one swift motion, decapitated the clone.

Shielder jumped back a little and spluttered. "What the- What the hell are you doing!? She was disabled, we were going to bring her to command, try to find out more about these things, what on earth is driving them to fight us!"

I looked at him in confusion. "What is there to understand?" Did he not see this? These things were monsters, killing them was the only option. "They're driven to fight us in their very being, they were literally made to turn on us. This isn't over until all of them are dead."

He took another step back, and began trying to muster a response. However, a notification popped up in the back of my mind.

 _Irradiated - Physical capabilities reduced by 20%, taking minor damage over time. 60 seconds remaining.  
_  
My eyes widened. "Get back! She's growing more radioactive!" He froze for a moment before taking to the air. Meanwhile, I looked down at the corpse, noticing that the energy fields she had been controlling earlier were now running rampant through her body, which was withering away as I watched. Was she breaking apart and releasing the radiation? Cursing to myself, I wracked my brain, wondering if I had some way to make this better. Absently consuming a Health Potion and, for good measure, a Regeneration Potion to help stave off the health loss from Irradiation, an idea came to mind.

They might be temporary, but a quick stone casing around the body should, at the very least, limit the spread. Thus decided, I moved a stack of stone from my inventory to the list of 'Active' items in the back of my head, mentally selecting it. Then, I rose my hands, and began to gesture around the corpse.

Almost as though through magic, stone began to materialize around the body, quickly obscuring it from sight. For good measure, I added another two layers. Hopefully, this didn't somehow poison the water supply. I checked my status again, and grimaced.

 _Irradiated - Physical capabilities reduced by 45%, taking moderate damage over time. 173 seconds remaining.  
_  
I actually felt the effects of the debuff, my arms feeling heavier, and when I began to hurry away from the stone tomb, my steps were a little unsteady. I hadn't made it more than ten steps when a massive crash came from the other side of the street. Looking up, I saw her. Echidna. It couldn't possibly have been anyone else, but I couldn't understand how she had appeared out of nowhere. I tried to look around and see how some of the fights around me were going, but my vision was swimming. Stumbling a little, I fell to a knee. People were saying things, but I could barely make out the words.

"-ickster swapped Myrddin away, he lost his hold on the Banishment. At least he didn't manage to get Myrddin captured, the last thing we need are clones with dimensional shenanigans." Someone was talking about something really important, but when I focused on that voice, it slipped away. I gritted my teeth, and thought about my health. It was dropping steadily, though Regeneration was alleviating it a little. I quickly drained another health potion, and did a little bit of mental math. I couldn't be certain that I had calculated it right, seeing as the numbers were wavering a little as I tried to gauge things, but I was pretty sure that I shouldn't run out of health before the debuff ran its' course.

Which is when, of course, I abruptly found myself somewhere else.

I swung my head around, blearily and frantically trying to figure out what had just happened. I must have been delirious or something, because I found myself face to face with a horse's head. It screamed at me, and I'm not entirely sure I didn't scream back at it. Then, I either fell towards it or it leaped towards me, because the next thing I knew I was swimming in darkness. Was I hallucinating? I hadn't thought I was still capable of that, but I guess that I was. I looked back to the debuff to see how much longer I'd have to deal with this, when I found something that made my blood run cold.

 _Ingested - Movement arrested. Combat disabled. Ongoing.  
_  
No. No no no, how had Echidna gotten me? I had been a block away! This, this didn't make any sense-

 _ **xX_Space_Cowboy_Xx has joined the world of Earth Bet.**_

What? What did that mean? I began to feel myself drift off...

 ** _xX_Dune_Cowboy_Xx has joined the world of Earth Bet._**

There was that message again... or was it different? I couldn't quite tell...

 ** _xX_Blood_Cowboy_Xx has joined the world of Earth Bet._**

That was probably important, I should do something about that...

Terraria claimed me once more.

OoOoO

 _ **Author's Note:**_ You guys have no idea how impatient I've been to release this chapter. It's been planned for months, I just had to work out how to get here.


	18. Interlude 2-A

Interlude 2.A  
Pharaoh

The second clone came to his senses moments before he erupted from the side of a mountain of flesh, feeling an odd stretching sensation as he fell to the ground. Coughing and wheezing he dragged himself to his feet. Clumsily swaying back and forth, he glanced around to a vaguely familiar sight. People were fighting in the street next to the alley he was in. Near him were his... brothers? Fellow clones, at least. They too were tottering unsteadily as they rose. He reached out with an arm that felt slightly too long, in an attempt to help one of them up. When he noticed the oddity of his limb, his motion stilled for a moment, and he examined it in more detail. He was tall. Too tall, and he noticed that he was at least a full foot taller than either of the other clones.

What was going on? The last thing he remembered, he had been fighting that radioactive Harmonic clone- Wait, no, that was the old him. _He_ hadn't done that. The old him had been taken down in a fit of weakness, succumbing to the aftereffects of that battle. He still wasn't sure what had happened to the original right before he had been captured. Regardless, that didn't have anything to do with the current situation.

His mental ramblings ended in a snap as battle instincts arose, hard won throughout a great deal of effort in... some place? There was some place that he went, at night, to get stronger. But he couldn't remember where that was. What did he do there? He remembered returning from that place with things, equipment, potions, weapons. The Inventory! Did he still have that? Focusing his attention on that familiar place in the back of his mind, he saw that he did indeed still have access to the Inventory.

It didn't have any of the things he had expected to find in it... but it wasn't empty. He equipped the armor that he found in there, finally covering himself. Being naked wasn't comfortable, though not for the same reasons the old him would have considered such. Nakedness meant weakness, being unprepared. Without his armor, he was nigh defenseless.

But not anymore. He stood, covered in bone like plates, much thicker than the bones of a human, which were held together by an amber coating. The armor didn't look like any of the armor he remembered wearing before, but all the same, it was... familiar. He could see himself making this, going through the process in his head. But the armor, while very important, wasn't the only thing he found in the inventory. There were a few stacks of knives, and one of spears, both of which were made of bones, like his armor.

But the thing that made up the majority of his inventory was sand. Stacks upon stacks of it, at least hundreds- no, _thousands-_ of tons of it. With this, he could... what should he do with it? What should he do at all? He felt a sudden impulse to go and find the creature that had spawned him, him and his brothers, and defend her from the... heroes? No, not heroes. What were the people that were trying to kill his mother? He struggled to remember the word, a word with a definition that had grown more and more vague... Oh, yes, now he remembered.

Monsters. He needed to go protect her from the monsters that wanted her dead. She was important, not from an emotional standpoint, but on a more primal level. He wasn't quite sure why, but as long as she was alive, his own prospects were a great deal better. She was halfway down the block. How was she that far away? Hadn't they been born but a minute before? As confusing as that was, though, it would have to wait. Fight! Yes, he had to fight. Why couldn't he focus? His mind kept on wandering. One of the others, however, had a bit of a firmer grasp on things, apparently. He looked up in surprise as the stockier of his fellow clones, now garbed in a purple bodysuit and helmet with a metallic sheen, took to the air using jets on his feet. He really needed something to call them other than 'Brother' or 'Other Clones'. For now, he'd go with the name Pharaoh, for his obvious Desert theme. Which was pretty sweet, honestly.

But seriously, Rocket Boots? That was _so_ unfair. Taking another glance into the Inventory, he noticed some things that he had passed over in his search for weapons. A bottle of- surprise surprise- _SAND,_ and a carpet. What the hell. He mentally went to hold them, and discovered that they were both accessories. Not at all sure how they could measure up to rocket propelled flight, he slotted them into place, and plotted out how to get to mother. He jumped towards the wall of one of the buildings adjacent to the alley, and felt a strange feeling in his feet, like there was a possibility of solid ground in mid air.

That feeling was familiar, and it came from the Cloud in a Bottle. Perhaps the bottle of sand wasn't as bad as he had assumed. Jumping yet again, he was slightly afraid when he abruptly found himself at least thirty feet in the air- and still rising. Panicking, he braced himself in the air and froze up. Which is when his expected descent didn't happen. Creaking open one eye, he saw that he was suspended in the sky atop the carpet from his accessories.

A magic carpet. Just when he thought his power couldn't get any more ridiculous... Still, he grinned, and angled himself towards mother. His brothers were already engaged in fights, the purple suit clone wielding an honest-to-god _laser rifle,_ and _damn_ was he jealous, while the other, sporting blood-red armor and attempting to use a wicked looking pike to stab- was that _Chevalier?_

A feeling of calm washed over him. These people were trying to kill mother, and by extension, them as well. With sudden determination, he decided to support his brothers from above. Taking careful aim, he threw a javelin of bone directly at Red's opponent. He readied another and was taking aim with that one as well. Suddenly, something _exploded_ against him and he found himself falling to the ground. Instinctively, he reached out with the Ivy Whip and-

With a sickeningly dry _crack_ he impacted the street. After a few moments of stunned surprise, he rushed to his feet, whirling to search for the one that had attacked him. Then he looked down, at his body.

"Oh." The ghost of Pharaoh rasped, though none could hear him. What was he supposed to do now? Haunt the enemy? Then, he felt a pull. Glancing in the direction that was calling to him, he saw Mother. As the pull grew stronger, he floated towards her. As he got within arms reach of her, the pull was almost too strong to resist. He felt his spirit get sucked into Mother, and then, he felt _sensation_ again. This time, when he stepped back onto the street from the fleshy confines, he grinned.

OoOoO

 ** _Author's Note:_** I wanted to write a chapter from a clone's perspective, though I had to write it again in something other than first person's perspective, because that was really confusing when taken with the other chapters. Please, tell me what you think, I might not be averse to rewriting this chapter, in fact, I might wonder what the hell I was thinking when I wake up in about five hours. Maybe writing on sleep deprivation isn't the greatest idea.


	19. 2-8

**_Author's Note:_** This chapter is the result of something I felt needed to be addressed. Many people have told me that I am writing Greg out of character. They have a valid point, Greg, as portrayed in Worm, would _not_ act like Greg the Terrarian. At least, not without some major events in his life to change his perspective...

2.8

I feel like I'm drifting down a stream of oil, slowly getting pulled further and further below the surface. It's been so long since I last dreamed... This is a dream, isn't it? Opening my eyes changed little, and my attempts to look around felt like my head was encased in jello. Still, while I scanned my surroundings with as much focus as I could muster, things seemed to be falling into place.

Literally. A world was being pulled together, right in front of my eyes. It began with soil flowing from places unseen into reality, a few rolling hills and shallow valleys dotting an otherwise smooth ocean of dirt. Once the land was brown as far as my eyes could see, rocks began to grow from nothing, dislodging pockets of dirt, on the surface and presumably under it as well. Grass began to spread, and flowers popped out of the ground. Trees exploded into being, and the world was suddenly lush and forested. Off in the distance, something massive burst out of the earth. A familiar looking purple mountain.

I was incredibly confused. This place was starting to look like Terraria. In fact, I was pretty sure that this was Terraria as it was before my arrival. But... I wasn't the first person here. When I had first found myself in this world, back before I had believed it to be a real place and that I had powers, there was someone waiting here for me. I looked around, trying to spot the familiar pale-grey shirt. Where was Trent? He had been here when I had first shown up. Failing to find any sign of him, I tried to take a step and start searching more thoroughly. However, when my foot phased through the ground and completely failed to move me at all, I narrowed my eyes in confusion. This place felt... wrong. Fake. This wasn't the Terraria that I knew. Also, I appeared to be a ghost, or something. I tried to will myself in a direction, but that failed as well. I spent an indeterminate amount of time trying everything I could, which wasn't much, to get myself in motion. Nothing worked. Without much else to do, I settled in place and waited.

I couldn't know how long it took, as I had no real way to measure the time passing, but after some time, I heard the first sound that was ever made in this world. A strangled yelp. I glanced up in surprise, only to see... myself. I wasn't wearing any of the equipment that felt like a second skin to me these days. Just a white undershirt and my pajama pants. I still had those, in fact. The other me looked around in confusion, seeing straight through me. He began to walk around, and I felt myself being abruptly pulled towards him. Within seconds I reached him, and then continued on, until we were one. Suddenly, I was seeing the world in more vibrant colors than before. Smells assailed my nose, the feeling of saliva in my throat, all these things reminding me that I was alive.

But I wasn't in charge. I could feel my head moving from side to side without my direction, my eyes darting from place to place but not under my control. What on earth was- Oh. These were my memories, weren't they? Of first appearing here in Terraria. I could feel the tar-like mist from before clouding my thoughts and I fell back into the dreamlike state. But this time, the memory grew clearer in turn...

Past Greg

"Hello? Anyone?" I called out into the empty woods I was in. How had I gotten here? The last thing I remembered was getting into bed and trying to fall asleep. I had felt so tired after having to answer the police officer's questions, and finally hitting my bed had felt like a godsend. But... now I was here. Wherever here is. I walked past another tree, and was startled by a sudden voice.

"Greetings Greg! Is there something I can help you with?" I jumped and spun towards the sudden voice, throwing my hands up in an atrocious fighting stance. There was a man, roughly a foot taller than me, with brown hair and a slightly ragged, well-worn white shirt and jeans. He was just... standing there. Looking at me expectantly. Who was this guy? What did he want?

I didn't say anything for a moment, still unsure if this guy was about to attack me or not, but then I managed to get out some questions. "How did you know my name? And-and who are you?" I was trembling slightly. This guy kinda had a bit of a 'Serial Killer' vibe to him. I mean, he didn't look angry or anything, but that didn't exactly disprove anything. Lots of sociopaths don't look angry while they're carving your heart out of your chest. Probably. I mean, I read an article about some serial killer in Philadelphia the other-

My train of thought was forcibly placed back on the rails when the man spoke. "I am the Guide. My name is Trent, and I'm here to give you advice on what to do next. You can come and talk to me if you ever get stuck." He spoke calmly, almost professionally. That didn't make his words make any more sense though. Advice? If I get stuck? Stuck doing what? I tried to figure out what I should ask him next, and managed to decide on a rough order in which to ask my questions.

"Alright, if you're here to help me," Something I wasn't actually sure of yet. "...then where are we? How on earth did I even get here?" These were probably the most important things to know.

His expression grew a little confused at my second question, and he began to answer. "This place is called Terraria. As for the latter... I do not know. You didn't bring yourself here?"

"Bring myself here? No, I just... fell... asleep." Realization struck me. "Oh! This is a dream- alright. Okay! I didn't think they were usually this detailed, but I never remember my dreams anyways, so that's probably it." Trent looked like he wanted to interject, but I spoke past that for a moment. "You said you were here to guide me? Alright, what should I do first?" Glancing around at the forest around me, I gave it a critical stare. This looked like a pretty boring place to have my dream in. Why couldn't I have dreamed of something cooler? Like, exploring space or even being a cape at an Endbringer fight or something? That would be awesome! Still, this was pretty early in the dream. Maybe this would ramp up to be more exciting?

At my question, all of Trent's confusion fell away. "Well, first of all, here." He held out some things towards me, and I took them gingerly. There was an axe, a... mining thing? I didn't remember what that was called. Oh, and a short sword thing too! They were all... bronze, or something. Except they were really light. "You'll need these to get started here. You should chop down some of these trees and make yourself a shelter. You can use the pickaxe-" Oh, yeah, that's what that thing was called. "-to dig and try and find some ore, and the sword will help you fight off any of the monsters in the area." At the last statement, my eyes lit up. Monsters? I could fight monsters in this dream? Well, that sure won out. Like hell I was gonna spend my dream building a house, who knew how long this would last? I was gonna spend as much of it as I could kicking ass and taking names!

Gripping the sword in my hand, I set the other two items on the ground. "Watch those for me, will you? I'll be back if I get bored before this ends." At that, I turned and strode off, ignoring the man's startled question. It's not like he's real anyways, he'll disappear when I wake up, just like everything else.

I had been walking for a few minutes, getting a little angry that there didn't seem to be any monsters in here. Did Trent- I mean, did my dream lie to me? Could dreams even do that? I'd have to look up dreams or something tomorrow. Maybe there was a topic on PHO, wait, probably not, dreams didn't have anything to do with capes. Maybe the StarConflicts forums would have something-Oh hey, a slime. My musing was ended when I spotted it. It was huge, easily coming up to my waist, and looked like it was made of green jello.

Of course! Slimes were the classic early game mob, I guess my dream was taking an RPG turn. Maybe I could level up! Well, it probably wouldn't last that long. Maybe it could pick things up tomorrow night? I grabbed my sword with both hands, and ran at the slime, yelling as I swung the blade with all my might. The blade collided with the creature and I fell over from the sudden loss of momentum in my arms. The thing rippled away from me, sliding a few feet, and I climbed to my feet. Dang, I didn't kill it. Actually, it didn't even look hurt. Then again, would a slime? It probably had a health total or something. Maybe one or two more hits would kill it? I'd have to swing a little less hard next time, and I would keep my feet a bit more steady.

Suddenly, the Slime rippled again, and pounced. It landed on me, and I fell to my back as the world exploded into _pain_. I think I was screaming, but it sounded like it was coming from far away. The Slime's gooey body was slowly enveloping my arms, as I tried to push the monster off of me, but everywhere it touched me _burned_ and how the hell was this happening dreams weren't supposed to hurt or anythingandohgodohgodimgoingtodie-

My screams were silenced as the Slime covered my head. The pain grew so great that I couldn't even think, my yelling rebounding in on my head now that my mouth couldn't let them out.

The pain didn't last much longer though, it all seemed to drain away as the world fell away into a black void. I was sobbing and hugging myself, so, utterly grateful that the burning was gone. Shaking and rocking my head, my gasps and wheezing slowed, and I eventually opened my eyes again. Once more, I looked around, still breathing hard, and studied my surroundings. The black wasn't quite as empty as I had thought, off in the distance, there were stars, dotting the... sky, I guess. Well, they weren't normal stars, though. They were purple, and red, with the occasional, rare, blue star intermixed. I only got to look at them for a few more seconds though, as I felt myself getting sucked away, towards a green star, one I hadn't noticed before. It got larger and larger and the world burst into color as I landed, lightly, on the ground. Shaking, I jumped back onto my feet, whipping my head around to figure out where the hell I was this time.

No. No, no, nonononono, I was back, back in that forest. The sun was much further in the sky than it had been before, but the forest around me was all too much the same. My shivering grew worse, and I hugged my arms to myself as I shook, sweat rolling off of my face as a whimper arose in my throat. I stood, like a frightened rabbit, ready to bolt at the slightest glimpse of a green ball of goo. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, and I jumped away, losing my footing as I slid to the ground. I desperately scrambled away, until my back hit a tree.

"Greg? Ah. There you are. Here, the axe and the pickaxe, you really should keep them with you." It was Trent. I didn't feel any better in the slightest. This guy, he had started all of this! If, if this was a dream, all I wanted to do was wake up, escape, escape and never come back. Out of desperation, I squeezed my eyes shut and curled into a ball, muttering to myself. "Gottawakeup. Gottawakeup. Wakeup, wakeup, wakeupwakeup _wakeup_."

Suddenly, there I was, a familiar texture under me. This, this was my bed. I cried again, this time in relief. Eventually, I uncurled myself and got myself mostly under control. "It was just a dream." I murmured. I wasn't too sure I believed myself. "It's all over now. Over and done with." All the same, I didn't close my eyes again for the rest of the night.

Not even to blink.

OoOoO

 _ **Author Note:**_ Please don't take this as grimderp-ness, I'm trying to give people a little of an idea of what happened to Greg to make him _become_ the Terrarian, and remember, people trapped in Echidna can have nightmares that dredge up the past.


	20. Notice of the Rewrite

_**Author Notice:**_

The rewrite of the Terrarian has begun. I've gotten a bit tired of explaining why this is happening, but you can see my explanation over on either the Spacebattles or Sufficient Velocity creative writing forums. In any case, I still want to write the story, so I just changed up how I was going about it instead.

You can find it here: s/12446747/1/The-Terrarian-V2-Rewrite

Or you can just click on my profile and navigate to it from there. Whatever works!

Hope you'll stick around for it, I'm hoping that it will be of a higher quality than this version.

I'd just like to say thanks to all of you who were around for this version of the story!


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